The EU Commission rewrites the Ecodesign draft: the ban on boilers from 2029 is cancelled. Condensation and traditional ones remain on the market
Even the European Commission puts the gear into reverse (obviously on an electric car, never mind). And it does so with news that creates more political uproar than a thousand press releases: no ban on gas boilers from 2029. The new draft of the regulation Ecodesignput out for consultation over the weekend, rewrites from scratch the system that only a year ago envisaged the definitive exit from the market of any boiler, regardless of technology.
At the time a minimum seasonal efficiency limit so high that it actually turns into a sales ban. Today, the table changes: lowered threshold, condensing and traditional appliances allowed.
A political swerve
The revision is much more than a technical detail: it is the admission that the green line of the last legislature has become unsustainable electorally and industrially. In Italy they sell for more 900 thousand boilers a yeara key sector of the gas supply chain and manufacturing employment. The ban would have produced an earthquake. Now, however, the abandonment of gas will not be imposed by decreebut entrusted to incentives, gradual transition and choice of member countries.
What happens to the Green Homes Directive
The new Ecodesign it does not erase the higher objectives set by the directive Epbd – Green homes. The horizon of the total elimination of boilers powered by fossil fuels remains written there by 2040. It is an “indicative” target, but Brussels has repeated it like a dogma. The problem is that after the reversal on immediate bans, the credibility of 2040 falters. The question is simple: if you don’t push the constraints, who will pay for the transformation?
The sector is celebrating
Giuseppe Lorubio, president Absothermicdoes not mince words: “We welcome the European Commission’s U-turn on the ban on installing boilers, a crazy measure that we fought from the first moment because it would have irreparably damaged our industrial fabric and compromised the community’s climate objectives. Italy has an old installed fleet, which requires structural interventions to be modernised and guarantee immediate benefits to citizens in terms of reducing energy bills and to the environment in terms of reducing emissions”. And he adds: “Condensing boilers are an essential element of this design, being ready to use any type of renewable fuel and integrated with technologies such as solar thermal or heat pumps, with a view to factory-made hybrid appliances”. For him, the transition passes through the renewal of the installed fleet and the condensing boilers integrated with solar thermal and heat pumps: the “hybrid” way, not the total break.
The next steps
The definitive text will be published in the first part of 2026with entrance effective between mid-2028 and early 2029. A time in which European politics will have to choose whether to continue with the pragmatic transition or return to green fundamentalism. Because the game is not over: it has just begun.
