The Strasbourg Parliament has given the green light to the “green houses” directive to reduce polluting emissions from buildings in the European Union. The new rules will have to be discussed by the Commission and the Member States, but in the meantime the parties that support the Meloni government have voted against the directive.
What does the directive on green homes provide?
According to the European Commission, EU buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. The directive voted in Strasbourg provides a series of objectives to solve this problem. Among these, the obligation for buildings that will be built from 2028 to be zero-emissions and the goal of not having buildings with an energy class lower than “D” from 2033.
It is probable that the European energy classification differs from the Italian one and this should favor the efficiency values of buildings in our country. In this case the “D” value of the European system would correspond to a lower Italian value.
There are a number of exceptions to these deadlines. The rule does not apply to monuments, social housing and second homes used for less than four months a year. Not only that, the States will be able to provide for a series of categories of buildings exempt from the obligation, even if they cannot be more than 22% of the total.
The clash over the funds for the renovations
Ignazio Corrao of the Verdi is sure that the new rules, in addition to lowering emissions in Europe, will also represent a great opportunity for the poorest families: “We have ensured that the people most in difficulty can adapt to the restructuring objectives thanks to the funds that will be made available to them,” he says.
Isabella Tovaglieri of the League does not agree according to which there is a lack of funding for the expenses that will have to be faced. “There is no clarity on which European funding will be used and for this very reason, despite sharing the goal of reducing emissions, I voted no to this measure with conviction”.
The European directive does not envisage an allocation of resources for the modernization of buildings, but requests that 110 billion euros be made available from the recovery of a series of Community funds already allocated.
The effects of the green houses directive on the market
The regulation of the directive has not yet been definitively approved, but for Tovaglieri the announcement of the provision is having the effect of altering the real estate market. “Those who want to buy a house today discard all those with a low energy class a priori because they already consider them out of the market,” he says.
For Corrao this would be a normal market dynamic that would already reward the most energy efficient homes today. Along the same lines Beatrice Covassi of the Democratic Party who also points out how the market is destabilized by the false belief that the EU will impose sanctions on citizens who do not carry out the restructuring. “The European standard on green houses will never include penalties for citizens. This erroneous belief is creating unjustified panic in the markets, but those who have an old house can rest assured,” she says.
According to an estimate by SkyTg24 made using data from Istat, ENEA and the EU Commission, the buildings to be renovated in Italy by 2033 would be between three and nine million.
The buildings would be nine million if the energy classes used in Italy were taken into consideration. However, it is probable that the European energy classification differs from the Italian one. In this case, the buildings to be renovated in our country would be six million, but with full use of the exemptions, the buildings would drop to three million.
Source-tg24.sky.it