Over the decades the European Union (EU) has introduced and implemented numerous policies and supporting legislations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase the use of renewables, improve energy efficiency, reduce energy import dependency and move towards a secure, competitive and sustainable energy system for serving people and protecting the environment. This paper captures the main EU efforts, instruments, regulations and directives related to the built environment that have been introduced, are in place and are being planned for reaching the near- and short-term energy and environmental targets. The overview also provides relevant data and quantifies key performance indicators that reflect the past trends and current emissions, use of renewables and energy efficiency, energy use intensities, along with the near- and long-term EU targets that are mainly related to the buildings sector.