Compromise found for EU Buildings Directive

The new EU Buildings Directive was long awaited and sometimes feared. Now the European Union has launched a reform with stricter rules. It is intended to help the EU become climate-neutral by 2050. The focus is on buildings with a poor energy balance. However, mandatory refurbishment is off the table.

The revised Buildings Directive is the second part of the "Fit for 55" climate policy project, which aims to reorganise European energy and climate legislation. The first part was already presented in summer 2021. The EU Commission, Parliament and Council have now agreed on a compromise. Instead of minimum energy efficiency standards, which would have led to a building-specific refurbishment obligation, binding primary energy savings are now envisaged for the entire building stock of the member states.

This is a good approach, according to most practitioners in the industry. However, the compromise has met with a mixed response from environmental associations and climate protection organisations.

"The abandonment of the individual refurbishment obligation with its unimaginably high costs is good news," explains BFW Federal Managing Director Andreas Beulich in Berlin. "According to KfW estimates, a total of 254 billion euros would have been necessary. Overburdening owners and ultimately tenants financially was unrealistic, anti-social and doomed to failure from the outset.

"CO2 emissions in the building sector must be reduced, that is undisputed. However, it is crucial that the avoidance of greenhouse gases is implemented in an affordable and socially acceptable way for tenants and landlords," says Axel Gedaschko, President of the German Housing Industry Association GdW. It is also correct that so-called zero-emission buildings must not have any emissions from fossil fuels. It is a very positive signal that the EU is relativising the originally planned minimum energy efficiency standards and thus making them more practicable.

The European Parliament and the EU Council still have to formally approve the compromise before the Buildings Directive can come into force and the EU member states can transpose the requirements into national law.

(Photo: © Erich Westendarp, Pixabay)