INDUSTRY CRITICAL WITH COMPROMISES ON ENERGY EFFICIENCY DIRECTIVE
Next week the European Parliament's ITRE Committee will vote on the draft energy efficiency directive. European industry, which has improved its own energy efficiency by 30% over the last twenty years, appreciates the political attention given to this issue.
BUSINESSEUROPE commends the efforts by the group of key MEPs to broker compromises among more than 1,800 proposed amendments. However, the European business community remains worried about negative economic effects of several points in the compromises, in particular where they risk prescribing absolute energy consumption targets for industry.
BUSINESSEUROPE's Director General Philippe de Buck said: "We have been calling on the EU to devise a policy which incentivises energy efficiency. Regrettably, the current compromise package does not match what industry expects from our legislators. We need a flexible not a bureaucratic directive, and above all one which does not confuse energy efficiency with prescriptions on cutting energy consumption".
