Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-148"
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"en.20021009.10.3-148"2
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".
Thank you very much, Mr President. I would firstly like to thank Mr Vidal-Quadras and the members of the Industry Committee for the great help they have given me throughout the discussion of the proposal.
The Commission believes that the five amendments presented, from No 8 to No 12, are generally faithful to the spirit of the Commission’s original proposal, since an acceptable and feasible balance has been achieved in the definition of the fields of work, typology and thresholds for action established in the Commission’s proposal.
I would like once again to thank Parliament, the committee and the rapporteur because I believe we have reached an agreement precisely thanks to this will to find a balance between the positions of Parliament and of the Council, on the basis of the Commission’s proposal.
I hope that this House can vote to approve this text at tomorrow’s sitting, and that it can therefore be applied in the Member States as soon as possible. It will thereby contribute to improving the European Union’s energy efficiency in an effective way, in accordance with our international commitments. We all know that we have made very serious commitments and that we must make the necessary efforts to ensure that these are not just stated ambitions but also tangible realities.
This initiative has arisen in the context of the debate on the Green Paper, and furthermore it responds to both the wishes of Parliament and the conclusions of the Council, which demanded actions to improve energy efficiency, specifically in buildings, with the aim of taking advantage of the potential for energy savings.
As Mr Vidal-Quadras said quite rightly, we are talking about 40% of Europe’s total energy consumption and according to our analysis and studies, there is a potential for improvements in efficiency of around 22%; in other words, in terms of the global energy mix, we are talking about the possibility for improvement of close to 8%.
In this respect, all of us, Parliament, the Council and the Commission, believe that this is one of the key proposals in terms of trying to comply with our international commitments, and in particular our Kyoto commitments on greenhouse gas emissions.
The aim of the Commission’s proposal is simply the adoption by the Member States of a common methodology for the energy performance of buildings. Secondly, the establishment of minimum requirements for energy performance and their application in new buildings as a general rule, with certain small exceptions, and in existing buildings of more than one thousand square metres when these are subject to significant renovation.
Furthermore, the certification of the energy performance of buildings at the point of construction, sale or rent, because another important element is the rights of consumers who rent an apartment, house or building without knowing what the real cost of energy for that building will eventually be.
Finally, an essential additional element is the periodic inspection of boilers and air conditioning systems.
Let us remember that Parliament established its position at first reading in February 2002 and the great majority of its amendments have been included in the common position. These amendments suggested by Parliament – I insist – have improved the Commission’s original text, without changing its objective, and in some cases have added new important elements such as the requirement in terms of assessment and information.
The fundamental problem between the Council and Parliament, as Mr Vidal-Quadras has said, was the transitional period prior to obligatory application. I believe that the compromise which has finally been achieved, three years for transposition into national legislations, plus another three to make its full application obligatory, is reasonable."@en1
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