Brussels have been very effective in transforming a useful economic union into a centrally managed dystopian nightmare that a lot of people will soon be willing to burn down regardless of consequence - myself included.
There are perverse incentives at work. When the EU does something right the national politicians usually take credit (when they convert a EU directive to local law), and when a national politician is struggling with a local problem, often of their own creation, they will blame the EU. It was generally perceived as harmless to use the EU as the scapegoat, but since Brexit showed there are real harms some of the politicians have dialed it back. Not all though.
Which is not to say the EU does nothing wrong, but I find the standard of policymaking at the EU level usually exceeds that at the local level.
Lots of politicians saw the writing on the wall. Nobody had the balls to tackle the real issue and change the guidelines at the EU level. It will be interesting to see how this will pan out.
Regarding the actual content: If adopted as proposed (which is unlikely), it would force owners of the 30% of least energy efficient houses (compared to the national, not EU-wide, housing stock) to upgrade their houses to come in line with the next higher energy efficiency class – by 2033, so ten years from now.
I own several buildings, both quite old (1960s), as well as brand new (net-positive energy). Improving an existing building in the worst energy efficiency class to come in line with the proposed standards is in most cases an expense in the low five figures, which (at least in Germany) will be subsidized with up to 50% of the costs. Lower energy consumption will in most cases pay for the renovation within a few years. Many of the measures (i.e. new heating source and radiators, new windows) would have to be done on those houses anyway, because the old systems reach their end of life.
So what are people complaining about, exactly?
> expense in the low five figures
> So what are people complaining about, exactly?
This is an incredible take.
Many people don’t have the luxury to just spend five figures on a mandatory house renovation.
- You own an asset worth 200,000-300,000 Euros
- The required investment, which can be spread over up to ten years, is 20,000-30,000 Euros
- You would have to make parts of this investment anyway, because your windows are leaky and your radiators are breaking
- You will recoup the costs over 5-10 years because you use less energy
- 25-50% of this investment will be covered by subsidies, the government will also provide low-interest loans for much of the rest
How is this an absurd demand to make of people who own a house?
[1] https://localfocus2.appspot.com/593e6715568f0 (click on municipality for an overview of prices)
You have perfectly demonstrated how idiotic these blanket EU-level policies are as they take no consideration of local situations.
Also, a quick check reveals that only about 14% of the Finish population lives in rural areas [1]. Even if every single one of those persons is a house owner and poor (unlikely, as those categories are to a certain extend mutually exclusive), it would be quite feasible for the Finish government to heavily subsidize the renovation of the entirety of the rural housing stock. Nothing in the proposed regulation would keep national governments from using policy making to implement the required goals in a socially acceptable way.
Also, what do you propose would be the alternative? Improving the energy efficiency of the housing stock is in most countries among the most efficient ways to conserve energy. Other approaches to conserve energy or produce the required energy in a sustainable way cost considerably more per kw/h than bringing a 50 year old house to a modern energy standard. And of course given the prevalence of oil and natural gas based heating systems in old houses, you actually have to invest in a new heating source to switch away from CO2-emitting energy sources, anyway.
EDIT: quick back of the envelope math suggests that it would cost the finish government 5% of the current annual budget for each of the coming ten years to invest 20.000 Euros into each of the approximately 250.000 rural houses (assuming an average occupancy of 3 people per house). Not a bad investment considering that it would be made up in a few years through energy savings.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS?location...
If you don't think binding 5% of the entire country's budget for 10 years into upgrading old houses is an manic proposition I think we can safely agree there isn't a way for us to see this from the same angle and we can agree to disagree on this topic.
Also, of course it is worth investing 20k over 10 years into a 80k house in many circumstances. Why wouldn't it be? Yes, some people won't be able to afford this out of pocket (though I maintain that this group is smaller than you'd think). But again, the government could (and should) support this group, making it financially feasible.
There is simply no conceivable reality in which our current system of laws would force a cash-strapped, 80 year old house owner out of his property simply because they can't follow up on EU energy regulations. We have plenty of legal safeguards to weigh social outcomes against the impact of laws and regulations.
We can get to actually zero carbon emissions if we adopt simple living without any industrial technology, but we lose the capacity to feed eight billion people without Green Revolution style agtech, so we will have to make do with fewer people. We have to face up to the reality that industrial civilization is widely regarded, by people with deep understanding of the issues, as a bad move.