Brussels, 24/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 24 September, the European Commission sent reasoned opinions to Estonia and Slovenia, calling on them fully to transpose directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency, under which the member states of the EU must achieve certain energy savings targets over the period 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020.
To do so, the member states must set in place a mechanism of energy efficiency obligations or other targeted measures to improve energy efficiency in households, construction, industry and transport. The directive was due to be fully transposed by 5 June 2014.
Slovenia and Estonia now have two months to comply with their obligations, or risk being brought before the Court of Justice and being fined.
The full transposition of the energy efficiency directive in all member states is currently being examined. In all, 27 member states (all except Malta) have received a letter of formal notice for incomplete transposition of the text within the deadline set. The Commission has so far sent reasoned opinions to 8 countries (Austria, Portugal, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ireland, Romania, Germany and Latvia) and has brought two countries before the court (Hungary in early 2015 and Greece on Thursday). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)