The new requirement for mandatory energy audits from 1 October is the direct national implementation of the EU’s revised Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), which is a core component of the “Fit for 55” package.
Fit for 55 is not a single law, but a vast umbrella comprising more than 13 different legal acts that the EU has rolled out in stages over several years.
This is yet another draconian directive coming straight from Brussels, and it shows precisely how the European endgame is intended to strangle small Norwegian businesses.
It began with Energy Package 4 (the Clean Energy Package):
The original versions of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) were first adopted as part of Energy Package 4. These are the older versions that the parties of power in the Storting have spent years arguing over, and which form the basis for the regulations that will now affect Norwegian MEF companies from 1 October.
It is brought to completion in Energy Package 5 (the Fit for 55 package):
In order actually to achieve the target of a 55 per cent reduction by 2030, the EU upgraded the entire legislative package. The revised directives (such as RED III and the updated energy-reporting requirements) and the entirely new, draconian instruments – such as ETS2 from 2028 (emissions allowances for fuel and buildings) and the hydrogen rules – were formally incorporated and adopted as the EU’s fifth energy package.
As the government now implements requirements for businesses and halves processing times for wind power, it draws, interchangeably, on the law and principles of both the fourth and fifth energy packages.
EU climate policy was implemented in the EEA via Protocol 31 in 2019. (The Effort Sharing Regulation and LULUCF).
The deepest integration, the strictest requirements and the transition to managed flows belong to Energy Package 5.
Without incorporation through Protocol 31, the EU would have had no legal basis for imposing its consumption and sectoral targets on specifically Norwegian industries such as the construction industry.
The threshold of 2.5 GWh a year may sound like a great deal to the uninitiated, but for construction contractors (MEF companies) operating heavy equipment, carrying out excavation, running crushing plants and moving earth, it takes very little to exceed this threshold.
The EU directive does not care that the company has only 15–20 employees; the law requires all commercial activity above this threshold to be subjected to supranational control.
That Senterpartiet is now suddenly “reversing course” and announcing that it will stop the regulations in the Storting is nothing less than political theatre. Sp itself was in government when these regulations were adopted in 2024.
They know perfectly well that because this directive forms part of Norway’s EEA obligations, the Storting has zero legal room for manoeuvre to stop it. If the Storting votes it down, that constitutes a direct breach of the treaty that will trigger sanctions from ESA.
What Sp is doing here is simply fishing for votes, and as long as the Norwegian media remain silent about the reality, the majority will buy into this game as well.
By keeping the debate confined to old directives, the parties of power create the illusion that the Storting is in control. But the truth is that the EEA Agreement merely gives us a little more time before we have to capitulate.
Whereas a full EU member such as Sweden has to implement the legal acts in real time and is immediately taken to court if it delays, the process through the EEA Joint Committee is somewhat slower. But the final destination is exactly the same. There is no escape.
Through the EEA, Norway has chosen a model in which we subject ourselves to exactly the same draconian requirements as EU members. We simply take a little longer to be brought to our knees.
This slow process has allowed Norwegian democracy to wither in the dark for more than 30 years, because most people do not discover that sovereignty has disappeared until the new requirement suddenly appears in the regulations.
“The Fourth Estate”, as previously mentioned, is dead, and this is how the surrender of sovereignty has been allowed to proceed in silence – without the mainstream media asking critical questions.
Energy Minister Terje Aasland is merely fulfilling his duty of loyalty to the EU when he defends the requirement and refuses to provide support.
The purpose of the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive is therefore not to help Norwegian contractors, but to force national consumption down. Consumption in the member states (including Norway, via the EEA) is being pushed down in order to free up capacity for the common European grid and for data centres, so that the EU can meet its climate targets.
By refusing support schemes, the government ensures that the enormous costs of external professional expertise and reporting must be taken directly from the bottom line of small family businesses around the country. They are forced to spend time and money on supranational climate bureaucracy rather than running their businesses.
Climate policy and energy have merged through Protocol 31, and the instrument is now being used to regulate and micromanage the everyday lives of ordinary Norwegian businesses, on orders from Brussels.