ČSSD: The Green Savings Program discriminates against residents of panel buildings

Prague - The Green Savings program, through which the state will subsidize home insulation and heating replacement in the next four years, discriminates against poorer property owners and residents of panel houses, according to the Social Democrats. The program, launched on Wednesday by Environment Minister and head of the Greens Martin Bursík, will offer 25 billion crowns. According to the Ministry of the Environment, owners of apartments in panel houses do not have the opportunity to draw from it for insulation because the program offers them funds through the Panel program of the Ministry for Regional Development.
    Housing expert from the ČSSD Ivan Přikryl noted at a press conference that there are 1.6 million apartments in Czech panel houses. Of these, one-third is insulated. The costs for insulating one apartment reach 300,000 to 400,000 crowns per apartment, so billions will be needed. "The Ministry for Regional Development is taken over by Mr. Rostislav Vondruška nominated by the ČSSD, has a great opportunity to redesign the program so that it is comparably efficient as the Green Savings," said Environment Ministry spokesman Jakub Kašpar in response to this. The Panel program has a budget of 4.1 billion crowns this year.
    Shadow Environment Minister Petr Petržílek listed the exclusion of operators of central heating supply among the downsides of the Green Savings program. Municipal heating plants and similar facilities are already subsidized by the state from EU operational programs, Kašpar responded to the remark.
    According to Petržílek, low-income and middle-income groups will also have limited access to the funds that the Czech Republic has obtained from the sale of free emission credits, as at least half of the funds must be secured by the apartment owner, and the costs are in the hundreds of thousands of crowns. "An average person cannot afford such investments, especially during an economic crisis; they may borrow, but they will be the ones in debt," he stated.
    As a better financing model, Petržílek described the German and Austrian model, in which a contractor intervenes between the owners and the fund, who is responsible for repaying loans, monitors the effectiveness of the measures, and on the other hand profits from the energy savings achieved. According to Kašpar, the program does not exclude the possibility of contractor involvement; however, if it were a condition for participation, it would discriminate against small firms according to Kašpar.