Brussels, 18/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 18 June, the European Commission enjoined Austria to fully transpose the 2010 energy efficiency directive into national law.
Under this directive, member states must establish and apply minimum energy performance requirements for new and existing buildings, ensure the certification of buildings' energy performance and require the regular inspection of heating and air conditioning systems. In addition, member states are required to ensure that all new buildings are “zero-energy” from 2021 onwards. The directive had to be transposed by 9 July 2012.
In July 2014, the Commission decided to refer Austria to the Court of Justice of the EU. Shortly afterwards, Austria adopted a number of measures to transpose the directive. However, it appears that a few of the directive's provisions have still not been transposed. The additional reasoned opinion sent on Thursday suspends the decision to refer Austria to Court.
As no member state had fully transposed the directive by the deadline, the Commission opened infringement procedures against all 28 states. In 2014, the Commission decided to refer Austria, Belgium, Finland and Poland to the Court of Justice, but the cases against Belgium and Finland were withdrawn. Since then most member states have complied with their transposition obligations and the only infringements still open are against Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Poland.
Following a complaint, the Commission sent a reasoned opinion to the United Kingdom on Thursday calling on it to ensure that energy performance certificates are displayed in public buildings, as required by the energy performance of buildings directive.
Both Austria and the United Kingdom now have two months to remedy the situation and inform the Commission of measures taken, failing which they may be referred to the Court of Justice. (Emmanuel Hagry)