Brussels, 26 January 2017 – Member of the European Parliament Željana Zovko has sent this morning a letter to the Vice-President of the European Commission and the commissioner for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič, the commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Policy Miguel Arias Cañete and the commissioner for internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs Elżbieta Bieńkowska, calling for prevention of the prohibition of the so-called tungsten lighting usage.
Zovko pointed out to potential detrimental effects, which changes of the regulations on terms of energy labelling of the lighting products, may have not only on Croatia, but on the entire European culture, considering that the subject changes will require huge costs for the new equipment and for the additional works and engagements, which smaller cultural institution in the Republic of Croatia will not be able to bear. According to Zovko, besides negative consequences in financial and organisational terms, when it comes to this prohibition, one must take into account also technical detrimental effects, considering that classic tungsten bulbs are still a unique lighting tool, which may not be replaced with LED, regardless of the so-far progress of technology.
“The year 2018 is the year of European cultural heritage. I firmly believe that the European Union should not adopt such prohibitions which might have disastrous effects for the cultural heritage and functioning of culture, especially having in mind that not all cultural institutions and not all cultural workers in the EU countries are in the same position and that some of them, whereby I am specially referring to the Republic of Croatia, are far beyond any possibility of investing in the new technologies.“ – writes Zovko in her letter.
Zovko ends her letter by emphasising that social and cultural component should be taken into account in the future planning and making of similar decisions involving improvement of energy efficiency.