Naujienos

2005 - 05 - 15

*Increased use of wood for building purposes

The social-democratic parliamentary group in the Nordic Council proposes harmonization of building provisions in the Nordic countries for the purpose of increasing use of wood.

The aim is to increase use of wood for building housing units all over Europe and thereby to increase local processing of wooden raw materials in the Nordic countries.

More than 700 000 housing units are built in Europe each year. More than half of them are single-family houses. Only 10 - 15 per cent have wooden frames nd less than 5 per cent of multi-family houses have such frames. In many European countries the ecological qualities of wooden house frames are recognized. This offers potential markets for the Nordic countries that have long standing traditions as builders of wooden houses.

However, there are obstacles against strong and effective joint action by the Nordic countries. National building provisions are more or less restrictive. For that reason the social democratic group requests harmonization of building provisions for the purpose of creating a common effective platform on the European market