Applications for the grants can now be made at the VISESA offices, as well as at the different Basque urban renewal companies.
The Basque Government’s Ministry of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport has recently embarked on a campaign aimed at encouraging citizens to apply for grants for energy retrofitting of housing and buildings.
The direct grants from Next Generation EU Funds and the Central Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan are in addition to the Basque Government’s Housing Ministry grants for refurbishment work.
The subsidies – for which applications are open – have an initial budget of €39.1 million, plus a further €47.2 million over the coming months. Their aim is to drive the green transition, decarbonisation, energy efficiency and the deployment of renewable energies with retrofitting measures, and to improve both urban and rural building stock. According to the Basque Government’s Minister for Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport, Iñaki Arriola, they are grants that are “particularly useful in the Basque Country, which has one of the oldest and least energy efficient building stock in southern Europe. Therefore, they clearly improve the citizens’ daily life, apart from contributing to the economy recovery after the pandemic and fighting climate change”.
Information in a network of offices, website and a helpline number
The Housing Ministry has set up a network of Retrofitting Offices to facilitate the application process for the public. The offices are already acting as one-stop points of contact for citizens to request information and process the Next Generation and Basque Government funds. There is a total of 16, including Visesa, a publicly-run company under the Ministry, and the Basque Urban Renewal Companies (SUR). The autonomous government has also set up a website with information on the subsidies https://www.euskadi.eus/web01-a1next/es/ and a telephone number (943 11 11 01).
The Basque Government order regulating the New Generation EU Funds’ grants is focused on three different lines aimed at supporting reforms started after 1 February 2020 and which will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis and until the funds are exhausted. In any event, they must be implemented before 30 June 2026. These grants are in addition to the usual refurbishment ones that the Ministry has open throughout the year and which cover a broader range of actions in housing and buildings – accessibility, safety, digitalisation, outdoor living space and, also, energy efficiency -.
