Bari: The European Commission has sent reasoned opinions to Greece, Spain, Italy and Malta for failing to fully transpose the Energy Efficiency Directive, and the four capitals now have two months to respond. The decision belongs to the October 2026 infringements package, which the Commission published on 1 October, and it moves each case from a first warning to the last formal step before the Court of Justice.
The recast law, Directive (EU) 2023/1791, replaced the older 2012 energy efficiency rules and required every Member State to notify its national transposition measures by 11 October 2025. Some provisions carried later deadlines, but the main notification date for the Energy Efficiency Directive passed a full year ago. In November 2025 the Commission sent letters of formal notice to 26 Member States that had not reported complete measures. Most of them have since closed the gaps or satisfied the Commission with their explanations. Greece, Spain, Italy and Malta have not.
After reviewing the measures and explanations that these four governments submitted, the Commission concluded that the Energy Efficiency Directive is still only partly written into their national law. The reasoned opinions name the specific provisions that remain untransposed, which gives each administration a clear checklist of what to fix. The public summary of the package does not list those provisions, so the exact articles are known mainly to the national ministries for now.
The two-month window is the practical deadline. If the four governments do not complete transposition of the Energy Efficiency Directive and notify the Commission in time, the institution may refer each case to the Court of Justice of the European Union and ask the judges to impose financial sanctions. Referrals of this kind usually take months to prepare, and many cases close before that point once a country adopts the missing legislation, so a reasoned opinion often works as a final nudge rather than the start of a trial.
The case matters because the Energy Efficiency Directive sits at the centre of the Union’s plan to cut energy demand. It sets rules for renovation in the public sector, for the energy saving obligations that national authorities must meet and for the way governments report their progress, and it supports the climate goals the Union has set for 2030. Gaps in four Member States can leave building owners, utilities and public bodies guessing which rules apply to them. That uncertainty complicates planning for companies that operate across borders and for investors who finance efficiency projects.
For now, the signal from the Commission is procedural rather than political. Athens, Madrid, Rome and Valletta have until around the start of December to show that the Energy Efficiency Directive is fully part of national law, and the next infringement package will show whether any of them still stands in the way.
