Banker: ‘Massive positive change’ underway for building renovation

(EurActiv, 19 Jul 2018) The energy performance contract model can turn building renovation into a truly popular policy objective among politicians in Central and Eastern Europe because it can be done without any use of public money and has no impact on public debt, says Ivan Lesay.

Ivan Lesay is the CEO of Slovak Investment Holding, a subsidiary of the Slovak Guarantee and Development Bank (SZRB), which provides financing through financial instruments for infrastructure, energy efficiency, waste management, social economy and SMEs. In the years 2015–2017, Lesay served as State Secretary in the Finance Ministry of the Slovak Republic.

Lesay spoke to EURACTIV.cz at the Central & Eastern European Energy Efficiency Forum in Serock, Poland.

Energy efficiency is often mentioned as a good area for using so-called financial instruments in the EU budget. Is this also perceived as an opportunity at the political level?

I think the politicians have learned a while ago that in some areas, financial instruments are more appropriate than grants and energy efficiency is one of them.

At the same time, there are still grant allocations for this investment area and since the Commission is making a combination of grants and financial instruments quite difficult, it is not always possible to avoid a competition between these two types of investment instruments.

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EurActiv, 19 Jul 2018: Banker: ‘Massive positive change’ underway for building renovation