EU countries behind schedule on 2030 energy efficiency goals: report

Only 16 EU countries have met a June deadline to submit updated National Energy and Climate Plans to the European Commission for the period running up to 2030 – and none of them are fully compliant with the EU’s latest energy efficiency goals, according to a new report.

The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), adopted earlier this year, sets an EU-wide objective of reducing energy consumption by at least 11.7% by 2030.

For the first time, the EU’s overall target is divided between member states on the basis of a reference formula that sets out their national contributions, with an automatic gap-filling mechanism in case countries fail to meet their obligation of reducing final energy consumption by 1.5% annually between 2024 and 2030.

EU member states were due to submit draft National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) to the European Commission by 30 June 2023. In those, governments were expected to outline new measures – including on energy efficiency – to meet the EU’s goal of cutting net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% before the end of the decade.

The European Commission now has until the end of the year to assess each plan individually and provide country-specific recommendations, six months before the last deadline for submitting final NECPs, in June 2024.

But according to the Coalition for Energy Savings, a non-profit group, “none of the 16 NEPCs submitted so far are fully compliant with the updated Energy Efficiency Directive” while “only four countries – Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Spain – have submitted plans that are nearly aligned with the requirements of the updated directive”.

Furthermore, “four countries – Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden – do not reflect at all the requirements of the new EED in their plans,” the association said in a new report. “At best, they acknowledge that a new directive has been adopted, but fail to update their drafts according to the new provisions,” it said.

“The plans already submitted are still a long way from meeting European expectations and need to be further revised,” the association warned.

New EU energy efficiency directive sets 11.7% reduction target by 2030

EU lawmakers have agreed to increase the ambition of the bloc’s energy efficiency directive, making energy savings of 11.7% by 2030 mandatory in a bid to further the bloc’s climate and energy independence goals.

Deadline missed

Three months after the June deadline to submit the draft updated plans, 11 are still missing – those for Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Ireland, Greece, Latvia, and Romania.

Previous NECPs were finalised in 2020 but are no longer in line with the EU’s climate ambitions set out in the European Green Deal, which were updated last year after Russia invaded Ukraine in order to accelerate the phase-out of Russian fossil fuel imports.

Earlier this month, the European Commission updated EU member states on the state of play, warning that if it does not receive the draft NECPs by the end of October, “it will be unable to assess them by December 2023”.

“Given that three months after the deadline for the draft plans, there are still 11 plans missing, the Commission is exploring the next legal follow-up options,” it said in a note shared with the EU’s 27 environment ministers.

[Edited by Frédéric Simon/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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