No "Brussels bureaucrat will confiscate your house if it is not renovated". With these words spoken in Italian, the vice president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, wanted to clear the field of possible misunderstandings on the second climate package of the year which completes the initiatives to cut 55% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 .
A phrase to "address the specific Italian concerns",
Timmermans underlined, and to certify the backtracking made by Brussels with respect to a first draft of the document which feared the idea that from 2030 onwards, before selling a property, a owner was obliged to carry out energy redevelopment interventions.
"The proposal leaves Member States the freedom to decide how to enforce the minimum standard" of energy performance, explained Timmermans. New buildings must have zero emissions, for the others there will be the gradual introduction of minimum efficiency requirements, as is already the case in countries such as France and the Netherlands.
With the exclusion of holiday homes and historic buildings, Member States will be asked to identify 15% of the most problematic building stock,
which will be classified as G, and to promote policies for its redevelopment, bringing it to grade F of the scale by 2030, and to grade E in 2033. The deadlines for public buildings have been set respectively at 2027 and 2030.
Huge investments are needed to achieve the objectives set by the EU:
for this reason "national measures are welcome and we support Member States in proposing schemes to protect the most vulnerable". Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said this when answering a question about
the 110% superbonus introduced by Italy.
Commission vice-president Frans Timmermas then observed that today the government in Italy must give great aid to combat energy poverty, but this situation is also caused by the conditions of very inefficient buildings from an energy point of view. So investing in renovations, he added, also means lowering the bills that families have to pay
"We have EU resources and new guidelines on state aid to help countries" and families "increase the value of their homes and reduce their bills," explained Timmermans.
According to the Commission's estimates, between financing for recovery and EU funds, the contribution from the EU budget could reach 150 billion
between now and the end of the decade.
The transformation effort will also involve heating.
The Commission proposes to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuel boilers from 2027. It does not indicate a date for their disappearance but opens the door to national bans and calls on States to plan to stop the use of fossil fuels for heating by the end of 2040.