KfW pot half empty: Union denounces bottleneck in new construction funding

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Bricklayer on a shell: fight for funding

Photo: Armin Weigel/dpa

From the point of view of the Union, state subsidies for energy-saving new buildings threaten to expire again in a few weeks.

The subsidy pot is already half empty after 40 days, criticized parliamentary group leader Ulrich Lange.

"A pound of butter has a longer shelf life than traffic light housing programs."

A new funding program – albeit with different criteria – is planned for 2023.

According to the Ministry of Economics, from mid-April to the end of May, 366 private and commercial house builders applied for funding from the KfW "EH40 Sustainability" program.

This supports new buildings that consume 40 percent of the energy of a standard house and meet the requirements for a quality seal.

The applications have a volume of 165 million euros, said State Secretary Patrick Graichen at the request of the Union.

According to preliminary planning, 300 million euros are available for the program, which will actually run until the end of the year.

Applications are coming in more cautiously

The Ministry emphasized that it is not possible to predict when the sum will be exhausted.

"Demand here is currently very volatile." In the second half of May, only around 2.5 million euros in weekly applications were made - before that it had been around 20 million euros every week.

In the past few weeks, building interest rates have risen enormously.

This also makes it significantly more expensive to finance a new building.

CSU politician Lange called for long-term planning security for citizens and companies who wanted to build.

This year, several programs from the state development bank KfW for house builders quickly ran out.

Most recently, an application freeze was imposed on a program after a few hours because the pot, which was capped at one billion euros, had been exhausted.

At that time it was about new buildings with somewhat less strict criteria.

After the end of the current program, the federal government intends to completely change the funding under the title »climate-friendly construction«.

Exact plans are not yet available.

The focus should be more on renovations than on new buildings.

According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the program should also focus in particular on greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.

mmq/dpa