Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions — A European policy on the seismic requalification of buildings and infrastructure
Date: 2017-10-11
Institutions: Commission for Natural Resources, European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: EU Member State, aid to disaster victims, building, building safety, earthquake, environmental risk prevention, seismic monitoring, seismology








C_2018054EN.01006201.xml










13.2.2018   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 54/62





Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions — A European policy on the seismic requalification of buildings and infrastructure
(2018/C 054/11)












Rapporteur:



Vito Santarsiero (IT/PES), Member of Basilicata Regional Council









POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS








1.


notes that recent research on seismic risk in Europe (such as the FP7-funded SHARE project (1)), while confirming that the highest levels of seismic risk concern countries such as Italy, Greece and Romania, also points to moderate levels for certain areas of countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, including the risk from tsunamis;












2.


notes that the Member States of the European Union (EU) contain a very large amount of buildings and infrastructure that require significant maintenance due to their structural condition, changes in environmental conditions and the rules governing the building sector; regarding the built heritage in particular, Eurostat and Building Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) (2) data shows that of the approximately 25 billion m2 of useful floor space in the EU-27 (plus Switzerland and Norway), some 40 % was built before 1960;












3.


notes that certain EU countries, particularly in the Mediterranean region, have in recent times suffered devastating earthquakes that have caused severe social and economic damage; Italy has suffered particularly badly, with numerous earthquakes over the last 50 years that have together killed more than 5 000 people and caused economic losses estimated at close to EUR 150 billion;












4.


notes that according to world-wide analysis of past seismic events, the number of victims and spread of damage is determined more by the vulnerability of buildings and lack of preparedness of the communities affected than by the intensity of the earthquake;












5.


emphasises that a close look at the effects of an earthquake on local systems and on housing and infrastructure fabric, as well as on the economy and production, reveals a slow-down and often complete halt in territorial growth processes;












6.


emphasises that guaranteeing the safety of buildings and infrastructure also means interacting positively with the EU’s regional and cohesion policies and its urban and rural growth objectives;












7.


is of the view that a European policy on the seismic requalification of buildings and infrastructure should be based on a multi-level governance approach coordinating the relevant European, national and regional competences in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and in analogy with the method pursued under the EU Urban Agenda. Recalls in this context that the EU level is largely competent for setting technical standards while the national, the regional or the local level is competent in particular for construction law as well as urban planning;












8.


points out that comprehensive seismic risk prevention measures are a primary requirement for the EU, in order to protect the safety of its citizens, conserve its historical and cultural heritage, limit spending arising from harm to people and things and maintain the conditions for territorial development and investment for growth;












9.


emphasises that local and regional authorities above all have a political and institutional responsibility to protect their own inhabitants, both because they represent the first level of governance response in coordinating rescue and aid operations in emergencies, and because they play an important role in the emergency planning phase and in framing structural (interventions) and non-structural (information) measures;












10.


also emphasises that local and regional authorities, as the institutions closest to local people, can foster greater awareness of the right and the duty of risk prevention and the ensuing development of active patterns of behaviour in favour of mitigation;






MEASURES TO MITIGATE SEISMIC RISK










11.


considers that, in view of the large quantity of private and public buildings and infrastructure on which work may be required, uniform, Europe-wide criteria (including the Eurocodes) should be used for classifying the seismic vulnerability of buildings and infrastructure;












12.


urges the European Commission to encourage a dialogue with the insurance industry at a pan-European level to seek a financial incentive by means of premium reductions during the requalification process and is of the view that it would be helpful to look into the economic sustainability and anticipated potential benefits of improving the insurance coverage system by providing risk pooling measures;












13.


considers it helpful, with a view to fostering the development of mitigation measures through greater community awareness, to clearly define and communicate both the consequences of possible seismic events and, above all, the advantages offered by requalification measures in terms of reducing the impact both socially (especially loss of human life) and economically;












14.


notes that, since precise methods and transferable results are not yet available that are clear to non-specialist stakeholders (administrators, the general public, etc.) regarding the major advantages to be gained by carrying out preventive requalification work, it is important to look at this aspect in greater depth by financing targeted research;












15.


considers it essential, in order to optimise and properly target the technical and financial efforts aimed at reducing seismic risk to existing buildings, to promote awareness and analysis of the vulnerability of existing buildings as a starting point for further measures and major public-private initiatives. To do so, data collection campaigns should be encouraged for the purposes of statistical evaluation and outlining shared priorities and methodologies, along with regulatory change in the sector and financing and incentive measures;












16.


notes that the experience in several Member States — such as Italy — suggests little willingness to invest in work among older or second home owners; it would therefore seem worth introducing measures to inform such categories, together with incentives that are not limited to first homes. Acknowledges the need to adjust measures for analysing and upgrading existing buildings, not least on the basis of studies and practical experience of placing individual buildings in the context of a vulnerability assessment of the whole urban area or agglomeration, thereby recognising potential weaknesses in the actual conditions of use of the buildings;












17.


notes that widespread requalification of public and private buildings is already under way in European countries in order to ensure greater energy efficiency, financed in part from European funds, but that such work does not generally address the issue of structural and earthquake safety;












18.


emphasises, on the other hand, the need for effective requalification to be undertaken by means of integrated and sustainable measures that can, at the same time and in the least invasive way possible, reduce vulnerability to earthquakes and boost energy efficiency;












19.


considers it essential to carry out, alongside structural preventive measures, ‘non-structural’ preventive measures aimed more broadly at increasing knowledge of seismic risk and, in particular, fostering awareness and an active role for inhabitants;












20.


is of the view that as well as reducing risk, requalification can have a positive impact on the environment by extending the useful life of buildings and consequently limiting post-earthquake demolition and reconstruction work, which is also a key objective of the Construction Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 305/2011) which introduced a seventh essential requirement for construction compared to its predecessor (Directive 89/106/EEC), i.e. ‘sustainable use of natural resources’;












21.


recognises that while a seismic requalification programme requires significant resources and is particularly costly in regions and Member States at higher and more widespread risk of earthquakes, it also contributes to employment and economic growth, particularly in terms of reinvigorating the construction market;












22.


believes that seismic requalification measures must be regulated by a framework of European technical standards which also address the issue of seismic retrofitting of existing buildings, based on a holistic approach designed to ensure safety, robustness and durability;












23.


considers that an EU platform should be set up to exchange knowledge, experience and best practice at different levels in the EU countries;






A NEW EUROPEAN POLICY TO MITIGATE SEISMIC RISK










24.


would reiterate the argument made in the opinion on the Sendai Framework (3) that all EU projects relating to construction of new infrastructure must ensure adequate disaster-resistance, while making it clear that this objective may entail greater costs;












25.


proposes that provision be made for the parameters that determine a territory’s seismic risk, and by analogy risks from other natural disasters, assessed according to well-defined criteria, to be considered among the criteria for distributing ESI funds between the regions of Europe; stresses that the EU must require all infrastructure built using ESI funds or any other EU fund to be disaster-resistant;












26.


proposes that EU regulations should provide for the use of ESI funds for the seismic requalification of public and private buildings, together with road transport and services infrastructure that is of strategic importance to EU countries;












27.


proposes that the action plan should provide for the upgrading of all buildings, including residential buildings, as well as public spaces, not only as places of safety in the event of an emergency, but as a long-term urban strategy that includes the possibility of relocating resident populations to public spaces where they can be protected;












28.


calls on the European Commission to develop in coordination with the Member States and, where relevant, local and regional authorities an action plan for the seismic requalification of buildings and infrastructure in keeping with Article 5(5)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 1301/2013 on the European Regional Development Fund; also asks the Member States and local and regional authorities to make full use of the support provided for this investment priority in the regional development operational programmes;












29.


proposes that this should send a strong signal to stimulate investment, in part through public-private sector cooperation, in the seismic requalification of buildings and infrastructure, with particular emphasis on the conservation of the cultural and historic heritage, strategic infrastructure and agricultural and industrial buildings and infrastructure;












30.


calls for increased R&I investment in the area of seismic protection of buildings, including the development of wide-ranging information and training programmes;












31.


urges the Member States and regions concerned to include the seismic requalification of existing buildings as a priority in their regional development operational programmes, emphasising the need to earmark financial resources for this purpose, including appropriate incentives for seismic risk prevention work;












32.


considers that maps of seismic hazard and risk zones for each country and/or region should be taken into account when implementing the proposals made in earlier points in order to optimise resources and results; proposes that research activities be fostered with the aim of developing these maps or updating them if they already exist;












33.


considers that an action plan proposed by the European Commission could be a suitable tool for further promoting the seismic requalification of existing buildings as a priority in the Member States’ regional development operational programmes;












34.


notes that common measures in the field are potentially more effective than isolated steps taken by individual Member States, and consequently calls for a single, coordinated effort to be made in the field of seismic protection and requalification of buildings;












35.


recommends that, in keeping with the objectives set out in Priority 1 of the Sendai Framework, public information campaigns at local and national level, aimed at fostering a culture of prevention, be promoted and supported.





Brussels, 11 October 2017.


The President of the European Committee of the Regions

Karl-Heinz LAMBERTZ




(1)  www.share-eu.org.

(2)  BPIE, 2011. Europe’s buildings under the microscope. A country-by-country review of the energy performance of buildings.


(3)  See the opinion on the Action Plan on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, NAT-VI/015, rapporteur: Adam Banaszak (ECR/PL).