Slovakia continues with house renovation wave

The Slovak Environmental Agency launched the submission of applications in the third call of the Renew House programme on Monday morning.

While 5,500 applications had already been registered by Monday lunch, the call may close once 10,000 applications are submitted.

For the third call, as much as €190 million of a total of €500 million have been earmarked for the renovation wave of the national recovery plan. Under the plan, the green reconstruction of up to 30,000 houses will be financed.

The first two calls, launched in the autumn of last year, were accompanied by multiple problems.

The Slovak Environmental Agency, which administers the calls, had trouble processing the applications. The national target was to contract up to four thousand homes by the end of 2022. However, at the end of January 2023, there were only 2,200 pending applications.

“No one in Slovakia has ever administered a programme of this magnitude. In the past, there were similar programmes at the Ministry of Transport, where in six to seven years of operation, a little over 700 family houses were contracted,” Slovak Environmental Agency chief Michal Maco told EURACTIV Slovakia in an interview.

As a result, many politicians have been worried about the future of the Slovak recovery’s plan pillar. “The fear of low interest on the part of politicians is hopefully over,” Richard Paksi from the Building for the Future wrote on Linkedin.

“However, it is very important that the Slovak Environmental Agency does not close the registration for others. Ideally, if the scheme’s cash flow allows, they should top the call up with additional funds. There are still plenty of resources left in the scheme. Certainly, over €200m remains,” he said.

“Stopping registration and closing the call would send an unfortunate signal that this time the opposite of the problem of the first calls has happened, and only the fastest ones have snapped up the subsidies,” Paksi added.

(Michal Hudec | EURACTIV.sk)