CoR brings the European Green Week to Estonia - Hoofdinhoud

EU i environmental law was the subject of the first local event organised in Estonia by the city of Rakvere in cooperation with the European Committee of the Regions. The European Green Week event took place on Thursday 2 June in Rakvere Smart City Hall, the first public near-zero-energy building in Estonia, which utilizes different building automation technologies and is heated using sustainable energy sources.

Mayor Mihkel Juhkami (ET/EPP) stated that the low energy building with its Competence Center for building skills is a good example of Rakvere's efforts to profile itself as smart city. He pointed out that during the cold winter months of Estonia the heating costs for the impressive building were only between 160 and 170 euros.

Marko Torm , Governor of Lääne-Viru County, noted the growing importance of urban environment and stated that "locally we know best our needs for coastal areas, natural resources and town planning". Uno Silberg (ET/EA), Head of the Estonian delegation to the CoR, recalled that the mission of the Committee is to "bring EU closer to local level and give the local level a more visible role in Brussels".

Andres Jaadla (ET/ALDE), member of Rakvere City Council, presented his opinion on the implementation of the EU environmental law which was adopted in the April plenary. "We need to improve the availability of eGovernment and internet based solutions for reporting and monitoring at local level", Mr Jaadla said. He called for local governments to invest more on environment and smart city initiatives, recalling that Rakvere was one of the first signatories of the Covenant of Mayors in 2008. Since then Rakvere has presented and implemented a Sustainable Energy Action Plan which covers the following areas: district heating, heat consumption, water consumption, street lightning and city planning.

The recommendations of Jaadla's opinion will be taken on board by the Estonian presidency of the Council in 2018, assured Meelis Münt, Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of the Environment. "Our aim is to decrease administrative burden in environment monitoring, bring up positive impacts of environment protection and foster ecological innovation", Mr Münt summarised.

Daiva Matoniene (LT/ECR), who is currently preparing the CoR opinion on the EU strategy on heating and cooling, stated that the focus should be on the development of district heating, industry and building sector. "Experience from energy efficiency upgrading projects in multifamily buildings shows that a combination of measures can reduce energy consumption by around 50-70 percent", she pointed out. This profits households, as well as country's economic growth: "In Lithuania, renovation projects are currently implemented by 300 small or medium construction companies. This creates new jobs and represents about 10% of the total investment in the construction sector", Ms Matotiene said.

Pauliina Haijanen (FI/EPP), Head of the Finnish delegation in CoR, concluded: "We need to create a greater participation of local and regional authorities throughout the process of formulating, transposing and evaluating EU legislation".