Election of Frédéric Carré, new FFB President
Frédéric Carré was elected President of FIEC’s French member federation, Fédération Française du Bâtiment (FFB), during the board meeting held on Friday, 20 March 2026. He will take up his position on Friday 19 June 2026, following the next FFB board meeting. He will succeed Olivier Salleron, who has been President since 2020.
Aged 51, Frédéric Carré is President of the Groupe Carré, a metalworking and structural steel construction group with 150 employees based in Tournefeuille.
He is currently Vice-President and Chairman of the FFB’s Regional Council, as well as President of the Occitanie Regional Federation.
FIEC sends its warmest congratulations to the newly elected President.
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European Commission investigates into building permits across the EU
In the framework of the European Affordable Housing Plan and the European Strategy for Housing Construction, the European Commission decided to conduct a mapping of building permits for housing in the EU, which aims to assess housing building permitting procedures across all 27 EU Member States, covering their complexity, digitalisation, and impact on housing availability and project costs.
An ongoing survey addressed to practitioners covers concrete experience with the administrative steps involved, the level of digitalisation of the process, key bottlenecks and pain points. It is open until 24 April and the results will be feeding the upcoming European Affordable Housing Plan including an EU’s housing simplification package.
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European Commission consults for an “Affordable Housing Act”
On 6 March, the European Commission launched a Consultation in view of proposing an “Affordable Housing Act” (i.e. legislative proposal) by the end of the year.
This initiative, which is part of the European Affordable Housing Plan, will aim at supporting public authorities in identifying areas of housing stress, based on publicly available data, and enable them, in full respect of subsidiarity, to take measures to protect and promote housing affordability in those areas, in particular through a legislative initiative on short-term rentals (STRs), which will be a central component of the Affordable Housing Act, as well as through a collection of good practices for accelerating the housing supply in these stressed areas.
The Call for Evidence is open until 3 April.
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Call for Evidence on the “Water Framework Directive”
The European Commission has launched a Call for Evidence as part of its recast proposal for the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Stakeholders are invited to share their experiences and evidence regarding the challenges posed by the interaction between Critical Raw Materials (CRM) projects and existing water legislation.
Feedback can be provided until 14 April, and the legislative proposal is scheduled for adoption in Q2/2026.
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Public feedback procedure on Delegated Acts under the Taxonomy Regulation
The European Commission launched a public procedure seeking feedback on the draft revision of the Climate Delegated Act as well as the Environmental Delegated Act under the Taxonomy Regulation (TR). The initiative aims to update and simplify related technical screening criteria.
Feedback can be provided until 14 April, and the adoption of the delegated acts by the European Commission is scheduled for Q2/2026.
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28th regime (“EU Inc.”): Towards simplification, with important open questions
For construction companies, particularly those operating across several Member States, the objective of simplification addresses concrete challenges linked to the fragmentation of national frameworks. The fact that the regime would be open to all companies, and not limited to start-ups, is also noteworthy.At this stage, several aspects of the proposal remain to be clarified during the legislative discussions. The envisaged regime primarily covers certain elements of company law (including incorporation, governance and financing), while key areas for businesses — notably taxation, social security and labour law — remain governed by existing national or EU frameworks.
In this context, some provisions raise points of attention. In particular, linking the rules on employee participation to the Member State of the registered office could, according to some stakeholders, raise questions regarding the consistency of social frameworks and level playing field conditions. Similarly, ongoing discussions on share-based remuneration mechanisms (stock options) call for further clarification, notably as regards their implications for remuneration models.
At this stage, the “28th regime” represents an important development in the European framework, the concrete effects of which will largely depend on the outcome of the legislative negotiations. The construction sector will continue to closely monitor developments in order to assess the extent to which this new instrument can deliver effective simplification, while ensuring a balanced and predictable framework.
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