mr president i too would like to congratulate mrs <unk> who has worked with tremendous dedication on this dossier
we have had a big delay because of the legal adjustments that were necessary because of the lisbon treaty and that has meant that there has been a lot more co emitted than would have been if we had been able to do this sooner
in this long gestation it is easy to forget that some of the things in this recast were actually considered quite radical when they were first raised
in particular the dropping of the one zero m threshold which was proposed initially by parliament in its report on the action plan for energy efficiency and also the step of bringing in near-zero energy buildings by twenty twenty-one
unfortunately this new requirement for new buildings will not help us with the twenty twenty twenty targets especially because increasingly we realise that we need to be looking at at least a thirty greenhouse gas emission reduction
to have any effect on meeting our climate change targets it is existing buildings that we need to concentrate on and the energy efficiency requirements there
i would suggest three key actions that we need to see in place if we are going to realise the potential for energy saving in existing buildings
firstly it is very important that the commission comes forward with a robust cost-optimal methodology for renovation
the timetable is quite tight but necessarily so because so much time has already been wasted and it is going to be twenty fourteen before the cost-optimal methodology will apply
secondly all member states need to consider adopting national annual targets for improving a certain percentage of their existing buildings
if we had a european binding target on energy efficiency i am sure that we would see that kind of action being taken in member states very quickly because they would realise that one of the easiest ways to achieve an energy efficiency target is by systematically upgrading existing buildings
thirdly and vitally member states need to put in place upfront funding for energy-efficiency improvements and despite all the work of the rapporteur and the shadows best efforts we did not get as far on this in the recast as we would have wished from parliament's point of view
therefore it is particularly important that we now get money for energy efficiency into the economic recovery programme and i hope the commission will not delay with its proposal on this
finally given the comments made in the state-of-play document about the weakness of implementation of energy-efficiency legislation in the past i would ask the commission whether it can ensure that this directive is implemented fully and on time
