Stop selling and renting ‘wasteful’ homes disappears, EU thinks about it

The European Commission backs off on the proposed directive on the energy efficiency of buildings. In the proposal made today, the ban on renting and selling the most inefficient properties from an energy point of view disappears if not renovated by certain dates, which was instead present in the drafts circulated in recent days. “There are several ways to achieve the goal of minimum requirements – explains a senior EU official – and we certainly do not propose” a ban on selling or renting the most inefficient properties. In a country like Italy, rich in both homeowners and inefficient properties from an energy point of view, also because they are often not newly built, a similar ban, even if it should have been translated into Italian law by the legislator, would have entailed enormous political difficulties for any government. The ban hypothesized in recent days “is not contained in the proposal: it will not be forbidden for owners of buildings and apartments to sell buildings if they are in class G”, the lowest, reiterates the senior official. energy efficiency will be left to the discretion of the Member States, who know the internal situation better than the Commission. Member States “will have to identify the 15% of the worst performing buildings that will need to be renovated” as a matter of priority. In general, for public and non-residential buildings (offices, for example), the energy performance level will have to move to at least level F by 2027 at the latest and at least to level E by 2030 at the latest. Residential buildings, on the other hand, will have to pass at least to class F by 2030 and at least to class E by 2033.