Denmark Pushes Through First-Ever EU Energy Efficiency Law

6/18/2012 @ 12:41PM |552 views

With the clock running out on its EU presidency, Denmark achieved on June 13 one of the chief aims of its six months in control of the European agenda. Negotiators from the Danish presidency, the European Commission, and the European Parliament agreed to the EU’s first-ever energy efficiency law, a package of measures estimated to reduce the bloc’s energy consumption by 17% by 2020.

The intent of the Energy Efficiency Directive was to codify a non-binding target, agreed to by European leaders in 2007, to reduce EU energy consumption by 20% by 2020. Existing policies were expected to deliver only 9% energy savings by 2020. Lobbying by EU member states weakened the European Commission and European Parliament’s draft proposals, and the negotiated agreement will likely fail to achieve the 20% target.

Agreement was in doubt

To read the entire article go to: http://www.forbes.com/sites/justingerdes/2012/06/18/denmark-pushes-through-first-ever-eu-energy-efficiency-law/