Samenvatting

This research report will analyse the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive which is considered to be a very important legislative part of the energy efficiency activities of the European Union designed to meet the Kyoto commitments (reducing global warming) and reduce Europe's increasing dependence on foreign energy imports. The Directive has been established to bring down energy use of buildings and to raise the awareness of the general public regarding the energy consumption of buildings.

The 4th of January 2006 was the official deadline by which the European Member States had to transpose the Directive into national law. Nevertheless, implementing the EPB Directive has turned out to pose considerable practical challenges to the European Member States. This thesis will therefore set out the current implementation difficulties a number of selected Member States are, and have been faced with and will further analyse why these problems have arisen. Also, based on the results of this analysis some future recommendation will be made. The central question this research paper will try to shed some more light on is the following:

How is the Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings implemented in EU Member States, which problems have arisen regarding the implementation and why? How can insights into reasons for failure contribute to improving future development?

Eight European countries will be looked at within this paper: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.