European Commission (EC)

The European Commission has presented its recovery plan for Europe, which would bring the total financial firepower of the EU budget for 2021-2027 to 1,85 trillion EUR. The funds would be invested in recovery and resilience and aligned with the objectives of the European Green Deal, including in the building and energy sectors.

Eurovent calls for an ambitious EU green recovery package that focuses on renovating the EU ‘s building stock, modernising the energy system, and investing in digitalisation and the circular economy. The next EU budget presents a unique opportunity to reboot the European economy and set it on the track to carbon-neutrality.

The report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) shows a growing gap between rhetoric and action in decarbonising the economy. Although the uptake of renewables in the EU is accelerating, progress on energy efficiency – especially in buildings – is too slow. The EU stands the most to gain from the energy transition but a much higher level of funding in building renovation and the deployment of energy efficiency technologies is needed to reach the 2050 targets. The solution lies at the nexus of the European Green Deal and the COVID-19 recovery plan.

The European Court of Auditors’ recent Special Report ‘Energy efficiency in buildings’ shows that EU-funded projects still do not focus on achieving the greatest potential energy savings per euro invested. Although the Commission has issued extensive guidance for improving energy efficiency investments in buildings including their cost-effectiveness, audited Member States allocated budget to projects on a first-come first-served basis, without weighing relative costs and benefits.

As part of the European Green Deal, the European Commission will put forward a comprehensive plan to increase the EU’s 2030 climate target in September this year. The Commission invites all stakeholders and citizens to submit views on the EU’s 2030 climate ambition increase, the action and the policy design necessary for deeper greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The COVID-19 crisis is impacting the European Commission Work Programme for 2020. The draft Recovery Strategy will focus initiatives that will contribute to overcoming the crisis. This draft would integrate aspects of the Green Deal, digitisation and the initial lessons learned from the crisis.

Eurovent and REHVA call on all relevant authorities in the EU and globally to recognise the manufacturing, distribution, installation, maintenance and repair of HVACR equipment as essential business activities and therefore exempt them from COVID-19 shutdown orders and travel restrictions. HVACR equipment supports critical infrastructure in the healthcare, food cold chain, data centre and building sectors notably. Prolonged shutdown of HVACR manufacturing activities might have severe consequences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The staff document on data servers covers the routes to procure data centres and includes a set of environmental criteria covering the whole life cycle from design and use, to end-of-life. The document on food and catering is of a more general nature. This is accompanied by a guide to calculate the Life Cycle Cost of vending appliances, including refrigerated vending machines.

On behalf of the European Commission (DG CLIMA), Oeko-Recherche is working on a series of analysis evaluating the implementation of the F-Gas Regulation (EU) No 517/2014 since 2015. This includes, among others, monitoring of the refrigerant prices. The Q4/2019 report has been recently shared with Eurovent.

During the fourth F-Gas Consultation Forum, scheduled for 25 March 2020, the consultants appointed by the Commission were to make presentations and have a discussion with the stakeholders. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, stakeholders are now requested to comment on the available presentations by 20 April.