Parliament and council reach agreement on energy performance of buildings directive
Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement today on the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). The directive intends to bring down emissions from Europe’s building stock, today responsible for 40% for all energy used.
S&D shadow rapporteur Miapetra Kumpula-Natri MEP said:
“I’m happy of the agreement reached. The parliament managed to convince member states of the importance of transforming Europe’s building stock. The increased renovation rate will bring investments and jobs and also bring down energy consumption and emissions.”
The directive requires the Member States to come up with a long term renovation strategy, showing how their building stock will be transformed into nearly-zero efficient buildings. A key s&d demand which passed was to include in the strategies an overview of policies that tackle energy poverty.
MEP Miapetra Kumpula-Natri said:
”The previous directive was not implemented properly. The Member States now have the tools to do it properly. Issues such as energy poverty and healthy indoor climate conditions go hand in hand with increasing energy performance of buildings.”
Another key part of the directive is the new requirement to build charging infrastructure for electrical vehicles when residential buildings are new or undergo major renovation and for all non-residential parking lots of over 20 parking spaces by 2025.
Miapetra Kumpula-Natri said:
“To bring down transport emissions we need electrical cars. The best place to charge them is at home or at the workplace. With this directive we are building European infrastructure for e-cars in the most cost efficient way. By doing that we’ll make it possible for more and more people to change into low-emission vehicles.”
The EPBD is the first file of the Clean Energy for All Europeans package to reach conclusion in trilogues.
