The full text of the letter is as follows:
To the Minister of Internal Affairs Mr. Kostas Skrekas
COM: To the General Secretary of Energy Ms. Alexandra Sdoukou
Inside Athens, 20.5.2021
TOPIC: “Energy Poverty”: The upgrading of old rental houses a priority in “SAVING”!
Dear Minister,
In view of the re-announcement of the “SAVE” program based on specific criteria for selecting the beneficiaries, we consider it absolutely necessary to bring the following to your attention:
From the European Union, the messages to the Member States are intensifying to direct their subsidies to deal with the dangerously growing social phenomenon of “Energy Poverty” (“fuel poverty” ), whose victim is the poorest households in Europe.
Our opinion is that the subsidy of “ECOICONOM” should be directed where there is the greatest need for energy upgrading. And this exists where there is the greatest poverty, where its first step is “energy poverty”.
Today, Minister, the poorest households are none other than of those housed in the old rental houses of the most degraded areas of the country. These households get colder than others in the winter, and get hotter in the summer. And unfortunately, in these houses without any insulation, the heating costs are unbearable, which is why their residents are the first and permanent victims of “energy poverty”.
The houses in which these households live have the main characteristic of being owned by owners who are in a similar or even worse economic and social situation to their tenants, with very low rents, and who today, due to ENFIA and COVID, have little or zero possibility of financing the energy upgrade of their tenants’ homes, without which they are threatened with complete obsolescence! beneficiaries, we propose the safest and most effective criterion: In order to deal with the phenomenon of “Energy poverty”, the combined criterion of preference for the renovation of old rental houses and apartments belonging to financially ill people should be proposed as the basic criterion for selecting beneficiaries in “EXOIKONOMO” landlords and which are the main residence of financially vulnerable tenant families, and which are currently the beneficiaries of the heating allowance. The cost of fully subsidizing their thermal insulation and modernizing their heating systems will be balanced for the State by the fact that after that their residents will not need a heating subsidy!
<p style="text-align: justify? At your disposal for any clarification and cooperation! The Vice President The Secretary General Stratos I. Paradias Charalambos Tsoutrelis Tasos G. Vappas Lawyer A.P.- President UIPI Om. NTUA Professor Lawyer A.P.
