ENERGY EFFICIENCY DIRECTIVE ARTICLE 6 ‘EXEMPLARY ROLE OF PUBLIC BODIES’ BUILDINGS’

On 18 February, Niels Fuglsang (DK Socialist), Rapporteur for Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (the lead committee), released his amendments. They confirm an extraordinary closeness between the texts of Commission, Council and Parliament, at least concerning the game-changing elements of Article 6 “Exemplary role of public bodies’ buildings”:

1.    Renovation of 3% of the public building stock per year extended from central government buildings to regional and local government buildings:  Complete Commission-Council-Parliament agreement. A nuance on Council’s side that may exclude social housing (see chart below), but judging from my conversations with government officials, it could be that no one ever meant to include them.

2.    Renovation to Near-Zero Energy Building level: Complete agreement

3.    ‘Alternative approaches’: Commission and Parliament Rapporteur tolerate none, and the one alternative provided by Council looks very tough.

The combination of those three constitute the step-change that preserves “the exemplary role of public bodies’ buildings” enabling Council to envisage the EPBD minimum energy performance standards for all buildings, public and private.

Rental: Parliament’s Rapporteur reinforces the Commission’s provision that new rental contracts have to be for ‘A’ or ‘B’ EPC-level buildings whereas Council has removed that altogether (see comparative table). Hardly surprising! Imagine an interior ministry that had the good luck to find exactly the facilities they needed for a new contingent of federal police in town X. Nothing else will do. But the building has an ‘F’ rating. The building – needed urgently – can’t be rented until the public or private landlord does a deep renovation because some EU Directive says so?

Full EPF Secretariat report under epf22-11 of 21.02.2022