Concrete Perspectives April 2014

Construction sector

 

 

• On 17th April 2014, in line with BIBM advocacy, the European Parliament plenary sitting approved the exclusion of construction products from the Consumer Product Safety Regulation (2013/0049(COD)).

 

• In the framework of the Renovate Europe campaign, on 15th April, the official Brussels launch of two studies took place. Both studies were prepared on financing energy efficiency of buildings. One of the study was prepared by the United Nations Environnement Programme (UNEP) Finance Initiative while the other one was prepared by a permanent working group established by the European Commission, called Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (EEFIG).

 

      United Nations Environnement Programme (UNEP) Finance Initiative: Commercial Real Estate: Unlocking the energy-efficiency retrofit investment opportunity

 

      Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group: Energy efficiency- the first fuel for the EU economy

 

• The European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry released a video on CE marking in the construction sector. Watch here the video entitled “Building trust in the construction sector”.

 

• The FireSafetyFirst campaign launched by Fire Safe Europe has now reached 45 MEPs and MEP candidates who pledged to work for a fire safe Europe.
  List of pledged MEPs and MEP candidates

 

• The Serbian Cement Association launched the Serbian version of the European Concrete Platform’s publication “Sustainable benefits of concrete structures”.
  For further information, please visit the ECP website

 

• CECODHAS Housing Europe launched a Manifesto “9 Paths to Better Homes for a Better Europe”. The Manifesto aims at finding solutions to Europe’s housing problem, providing greatest well-being for European and stabilising long-term investments.
  CECODHAS Manifesto

 

• EU-OHSAS the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work launched a Healthy Workplaces campaigns in April. The campaign is open to all individuals and organisations. In the framework of the campaign, Healthy Workplaces Good Practice Awards is organised which aims to demonstrate the benefits of adopting good OSH practice.

 

      Furthermore, European Week for Safety and Health at Work will be held in October 2014.

      For further details please refer to the EU OHSAS Press Release.

 

Live from the European Union

 

 

New Energy and Environmental State aid Guidelines adopted

On 9 April 2014, the European Commission adopted its new Energy and Environmental State Aid Guidelines (the “EEAG”) for the period 2014-2020. The new guidelines will take effect from 1 July 2014 and cover State aid to the energy sector. According to the new EEAG, the aid to renewable energy will focus more on market-based support and aims at addressing market distortions linked to subsidies granted to renewable energy sources.

 

The other main change in the new EEAG, is the possibility to reduce the burden of RES charges for a list of energy-intensive sectors (Annexe 3). This measure aims to release the burden on the energy-intensive industries that are exposed to international competition.

Several construction-related sectors are enabled:

 

–Manufacture of cement

–Quarrying of ornamental and building stone, limestone, gypsum, chalk and slate

–Ceramics sub-sectors

–Manufacture of bricks, tiles and construction products, in baked clay

–Manufacture of tubes, pipes, hollow profiles and related fittings, of steel

Etc.

 

For further information, please refer to the Energy Environmental State Aid Guidelines – full text.

European Commission – Press Release

 

European Commission refers Belgium and Finland to the Court for incomplete transposition of EPBD directive

On 16 April 2014, The European Commission referred Belgium and Finland to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to transpose the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Both Member States lack sufficient transposition measures on regional level, including, amongst others, measures relating to energy certificates and nearly-zero energy buildings.

At the same time, the Commission is current y examines other Members States as well over incomplete transposition of the EPBD directive (United Kingdom, Slovenia, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, Malta, Latvia, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece, Estonia, Czech Republic and Austria).

 

European Commission – Press Release

 

News in brief

AGENDA

 

 

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