GEN – 1126.00. In cooperation with Orgalim, the Eurovent Team regularly provides you with an in-depth overview on all European legislative developments of relevance for the HVACR sector. The Bulletin provides for a hands-on compendium allowing the industry to assess the status quo and expected future developments. In addition to recent sector specific issues, our Team has summarised some of the key takeaways within this article.
Highlights
The issues listed below are sometimes subject to postponements due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
COVID-19
The extensive overview of European actions can be found in the first twelve pages of GEN – 1126.01.
Regulation on market surveillance and compliance
The Commission has created a Task Force to implement Article 9 of the Regulation 2019/1020 (joint activities between market surveillance authorities and economic operators). As a reminder, these joint activities should be carried out in accordance with the principles of impartiality, independence and without bias. With this in mind, the aim is to follow the two steps below:
- Agree on a set of criteria for joint activities, which ensure that the joint activities do not lead to unfair competition between economic operators and do not impinge on the objectivity, independence and impartiality of the parties. This would be carried out taking into account past or ongoing similar joint activities.
- Develop a ‘template agreement’ with a set of different provisions in this template agreement, depending on the type of joint activities envisaged (promoting compliance, identifying non-compliance, raising awareness and providing guidance on Union harmonisation legislation and with respect to specific categories of products, including those that are offered for sale online, etc).
Circular Economy Action Plan
Following the publication of the Circular Economy Action Plan in March, an emphasis on greening European industry through the Circular Economy as part of its recovery strategy is envisaged.
Although the Circular Economy Action Plan would seek to expand the Ecodesign Directive to non-energy related products this might not be included in the policy proposal expected to be published in 2021. The Ecodesign Working Plan may include some circular aspects and is set to be included in the Green Deal Package announced for October 2020.
Renovation Wave Initiative
The Renovation Wave was announced in the Green Deal Communication published last December and aims to promote the scaling-up of building renovations in order to help minimise the emissions of the EU building stock. Following the input to the public consultation, the Commission is expected to publish in the autumn a communication and action plan on the Renovation Wave which will address key issues such as: tools and mechanisms to stimulate investment towards building renovations, addressing worst-performing buildings, energy poverty, supporting skills and employment strategies and promotion and uptake of smart technologies in buildings.
Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI)
The study team is expected to publish their final report in June with a finalised building services catalogue. The publication of the final Delegated and Implementing Acts in the Official Journal is still foreseen for September.
Energy efficiency in buildings – Report by European Court of Auditors
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) published the report ‘Energy efficiency in buildings: greater focus on cost-effectiveness still needed’. The report assessed whether EU co-funded investments in energy efficiency in buildings contributed to the 2020 energy savings targets in a cost-effective manner. The report found that in many cases this had not been the case, and that building renovation projects occurred with high costs citing multiple reasons.
Recommended Actions
The members may find it useful to read the extensive 40-page overview that provides a pointer for possible upcoming initiatives and future regulations.
Related documents and links
All related documents and articles can be found in the respective sections in the right sidebar.
- GEN – 1126.01 – Legislative information bulletin – March 2020
- GEN – 1126.02 – Legislative update – March 2020
- GEN – 1126.03 – Legislative information bulletin – May 2020
- GEN – 1126.04 – Legislative update – May 2020