Brussels, 16/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - In a report published on Monday 16 March, the coalition for energy-saving denounced the continuing lack of willingness on the part of member states to implement existing European legislation on energy efficiency.
The coalition brings together around 20 different organisations representing sectors in the renovation and insulation sectors of industry, the local authorities and civil society. It believes that the action plans drawn up at a national level to reach the minimum energy saving level targets required in the “energy efficiency” directive, “continue to lack credibility”. The coalition regretted that since the publication of a similar study in spring 2014, the member states have only introduced a few improvements to their plans.
According to its most recent assessment of the implementation of Article 7 in the directive, the majority of member states have not put forward credible plans on how they intend to respond to meeting the new requirements. From 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020, they are obliged to carry out new energy savings every year of up to 1.5% of the volume of annual fuel sold to end-user customers by the different energy suppliers or retail energy companies.
The coalition regrets that this assessment “demonstrates worrying disparities between the energy savings reported by member states and the minimum savings that should be indicated if Eurostat were being used”. Since the most recent presentation of its plan in April 2014, Germany has reduced its 14% energy savings target, without providing a suitable explanation.
The coalition is also concerned that member states are continuing to include non-admissible measures in their plans: the United Kingdom, for example, has again included measures such as savings resulting from construction standards in its new plan.
According to the coalition, only Denmark and Ireland have presented credible plans so far. It concluded that “the majority of the other presentations include incomplete and weak plans that do not show how member states will reach the targets agreed”. (Emmanuel Hagry)