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The objectives of the opinion are to:
• analyse the impact on Regional and Local governments of new binding requirements included in the Clean Energy Package;
• analyse how the new Clean Energy Package is dealing with energy poverty, with a view to multilevel governance and implementation;
• highlight local and regional needs related to energy poverty policies and actions;
• analyse how the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy is dealing with energy poverty and the impact of this 'new pillar' on the Covenant Community.

The CoR co-organised a session during the European Union Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) 2019 on "Multilevel and participatory action to tackle energy poverty". The rapporteur presented her opinion in a session focused on addressing energy poverty in the field. The session was moderated by Stefan BOUZAROVSKI, Chair of European Union Energy Poverty Observatory (EPOV).

The EUSEW session aimed notably at answering the question "How to make energy poverty a priority at local and national levels?". In this respect, the opinion highlighted the importance to ensure effective multi-level governance regarding the fight against energy poverty and the Communication from the European Commission issued in June and assessing the 28 draft NECPs (COM(2019) 285 final) insisted that it is needed that the MS properly address energy poverty, "including by assessing the number of households in energy poverty and where necessary defining an indicative objective to reduce energy poverty".

The opinion put emphasis on the role of the EU Energy Poverty Observatory and it deserves to be noted that the new European Commission has confirmed (mission letter from Ms van der Leyen and hearing of Ms Simson in front of the European Parliament) that EPOV will be a key player in the fight against energy poverty.

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS



- points out that since energy poverty is already a well-known problem and is now being increasingly recognised in the EU's legislative framework with explicit obligations on Member States, nobody will be able to claim in the future that they were unaware of the issue: policies and specific measures are needed; notes, however, that the precise definition of the different aspects and effects of energy poverty as well as the necessary indicators to measure them need to be developed with full attention to the diversity of regional and local circumstances in order to ensure that policy measures can be targeted and implemented effectively;

- calls on the European Commission to propose specific objectives for reducing energy poverty by 2030 and eradicating it by 2050;

- considers improving the energy efficiency of the housing stock to be one of the main areas of work for local and regional authorities and urges them to avoid focusing exclusively on social housing, particularly in Member States with low rates of social housing;

- highlights the need to allocate as large a share of EU funds as possible to an overall renovation of the building stock which takes account of energy poverty, in order to specifically avoid a delay in the energy upgrading of the homes of the poorest tenants and owners, which would increase energy poverty and hamper the achievement of climate objectives;

- calls on the European Commission to look at the conditions for extending the activity of the Energy Poverty Observatory, to extend its purpose and work as far as is necessary, and to develop possibilities for data collection and evaluation, given that the information collected by the Observatory will continue to be essential for the proper development of public policies in the future.