Csaba Borboly, the president of Harghita County Council invited building engineers from Harghita county for a forum on the 19th of September within the frame of a consultation series, regarding the draft opinion about sustainable buildings, which he composes as the rapporteur of the Committee of the Regions. Borboly Csaba was elected rapporteur on the subject of sustainable buildings in the Committee of the Regions during the Environment, Climate Change and Energy Commission’s (ENVE) meeting in Brussels on 19th June.
According to Csaba Borboly the essence of the consultation series is that we can give expression to our opinion about the above mentioned topic before the legislative decision is taken in the European Union. Of course, we have to take into consideration also the interests of the other EU members, and to align our regional interests in this matter according to the common interest.
– The CoR’s power is constantly rising, it will function almost as the upper house of the European Union, therefore becomes important to strengthen the voice of our region, to represent its interests whenever we create a draft opinion. In this way, we urge measures, which can be applied “home”, in our region too.
Constructions in Harghita County are usually wasteful and unconsidered; Harghita County Council tries to change this attitude towards constructions through interrelated programs such as the village image protecting program and the county urban plan, which is right now under construction. We also intend to express our opinion regarding the European legislation in the matter of wood processing and forestry; we can also do this in the context of sustainable buildings. – said the president of Harghita County Council.
László Csák, the expert of the rapporteur was also present at the consultation, where a significant problem has emerged in the case of renewed, deafened public institutions, mainly because of the inadequate ventilation solutions or the lack of ventilation. Because of this problem children fall sick in kindergartens or schools and the performance of adults is also affected negatively.
Ventilation, airing should be strictly taken into consideration at mayors’ offices and whenever a new construction or renovation plan is presented, and this should be included in an article of the draft opinion. In addition with proper ventilation we can save thermal energy, too. In the case of ventilation systems building engineers should collaborate with architects.
The participants urged a survey upon the size of wood processing capacity, because according to them heating systems should be built up considering these parameters. The phenomenon that the wood is sold unprocessed has negative impact on the construction of energy efficient buildings, houses here in Transylvania, since the construction of these kinds of buildings would have a lower cost. It came also into discussion that the insulation of the buildings could be solved with the usage of a larger quantity of wool, but somehow this method did not become popular here, as opposed to Irish constructional tradition. Another popular problem is that offices are tooled up with separate air condition system though this could be changed to adequate shielding consuming less energy.
The overall goal of the initiative of the European Commission on the topic of sustainable construction is to reduce the environmental impact of buildings by improving resource efficiency, increasing the competitiveness of companies in the construction industry. In this respect it is necessary to improve general knowledge on the use of resources, awareness of the effects that buildings have on the environment that requires awareness campaigns in the private sphere, the architects and the general public institutions to increase construction applications green buildings.
Rapporteurs are appointed for documents on which the Committee of the Regions decides to issue an opinion. These documents can be legislative proposals, Communications, White Papers, Green Papers, reports or other referrals submitted to the CoR by one of the three main European institutions, i.e. the European Commission, the Council of the EU or the European Parliament. The decision to issue an opinion is taken by the competent commission during regular meetings, having regard to the degree of relevance of thesubject matter to local and regional authorities and having consulted the political coordinators.
The most fundamental role of a CoR opinion is to issue recommendations about how the EU should shape its policy and laws. A CoR opinion should therefore express the concerns of local and regional authorities and should present them in a way that the other institutions can easily identify the
key messages and follow the argumentation and reasoning of the CoR and make changes to the original proposal where appropriate. The more precise the CoR opinion, referring to concrete local and regional experience, the easier it is for the CoR to communicate its messages and objectives.
You can fiind more information about the topic at the web page of: http://www.borbolycsaba.ro/en/committe-of-the-regions/
Miercurea-Ciuc, 19th September 2014
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