Brussels – Let’s press ahead with the refurbishment of buildings, without any fuss. The Directive on the energy performance of buildings, better known as the directive on “green homes”, continues to spark debate in European politics and to provoke heated exchanges. This time, Liberal MEPs (RE), backed by signatures from members of the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), are calling for “greater flexibility” in the implementation of the rules. This request has been met with opposition from the European Commission: “The directive already provides for considerable flexibility,” states the Commission’s Energy Commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, who, with his reply effectively brings the matter to a close.
This cross-party question has reignited the never-ending dispute over a measure that continues to raise doubts, criticism, and discontent. Previously, opposition parties called for a reversal, particularly the Lega group in the European Parliament—including during the parliamentary vote that gave the go-ahead, when the measure met opposition, particularly from conservatives (ECR) and Eurosceptics (ESN). Now, however, there is a whole new outcry—this time entirely pro-European—over the EU’s agenda for green homes.
The new calls to water down the text and the rules it contains have not fazed the Energy Commissioner in the slightest, and he insists: as it stands, the directive allows Member States to “adapt the measures to the specific national context, including by granting exemptions that an unfavourable cost-benefit assessment may justify.” None of these provisions justifies new flexibility measures.
Nothing new, just another chapter in the equally delicate and turbulent saga of the rules governing green homes, which have already been the subject of a sweeping infringement procedure in which the European Commission took action against all 27 Member States for failure to fully transpose the directive—in what sounds like a mutiny. And this time, the passive resistance of national governments is compounded by fresh calls for a U-turn from the European Parliament, from the benches of those who are, in theory, “allies” of the Commission.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
