Brussels, 13/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - Meeting on Thursday 9 December in Brussels on the initiative of Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France), the URBAN inter-group took stock of how the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) were used to support energy efficiency in residential properties. One conclusion that was drawn by Christos Doulkeridis, the secretary of state for housing in the Brussels-Capital region, was clear: faced with the challenges of social cohesion and protecting resources, European ministers responsible for housing (in the follow up to the work accomplished at the Toledo meeting) must continue to appeal for support from the ERDF for sustainable urban development, where housing would be fully taken into account. This is the conclusion of the work undertaken by the URBAN inter-group at the European Parliament.
The support measure for thermal housing rehabilitation was adopted as part of the revision procedure for Article 7 in the EDRF Regulation in May 2009. This method is used in several countries, particularly the United Kingdom (more than 70% of its budget has already been committed for this), Estonia, Belgium, Poland and even in France, where 70% of the budget available has already been committed, indicates a press release from the Union sociale pour l'Habitat
The ERDF can play a crucial role in mobilising institutional and financial partners to develop a common energy rehabilitation strategy for a country's housing stock. In order to achieve this aim, several key components are required: the various stakeholders in the development of a diagnosis of the situation have to work together to assess the situation and devise a common strategy; flexibility in the use of funding sources (subsidies or advantageous interest rates); and monitoring projects and capitalising on results. Proposals for making improvements have recently been made in terms of simplifying procedures for candidacy tenders for multiple sources of funding and evaluation criteria for harmonising energy performance among different finance providers. This is an essential measure for the French HLM movement according to Thierry Repentin (Union sociale pour l'Habitat ), who also observes that the ERDF can play a role in bringing French and European regions together, which would require an extension to this measure. He also advocated: (1) greater involvement of local inhabitants in devising thermal rehabilitation projects; (2) administrative simplification of European dossiers; (3) an end to the 4% ceiling. On this point, Karima Delli proposed: (1) working towards assessing energy performance requirements in buildings in each of the member states and calculating the required amounts from the ERDF budget; (2) organising a hearing in 2011 of all the different actors implementing European instruments for energy performance in buildings, whether the 4% from the ERDF or the JESSICA and ELENA initiatives. (Com-G.B./transl.fl)