Vice-President Tsakiris at the Scaling up Support on Affordable and Sustainable Housing seminar

Thank you very much David for moderating this event. Thank you also dear panellists, ladies and gentlemen. We have, I believe that we have done some great discussions today.

We set out to discuss the root causes and barriers to investments to the European housing market and to explore some possible solutions and I think we just have done just that.

In the panel discussion earlier, much was said about the need for cooperation between the European Commission, the European Investment Bank Group, affordable housing organisations and other partners. And I have to say that I agree. And I'm picking up the last point that the private sector has definitely to be mobilised and involved. Cooperation is the best way forward. By working together we can take a holistic approach to developing Europe's affordable and sustainable housing market.

I also found the case study session this afternoon very useful, which I also hope you did too. We heard from housing project promoters from France, Ireland Poland, and Spain, and I think there's a lot that we can learn from each other about scalable solutions, but also very different solutions. I'm convinced that by working together, we can reach out to more solutions. And exchanging ideas as we have done today we will find also more to do in the future.

The quality and affordability of housing is a major concern for citizens across Europe. Increasing the availability of affordable and sustainable housing in Europe can only be a good thing and the European investment Bank is committed to make this happen.

As the president mentioned in her opening speech, we plan several more meetings on housing this year. And in these meetings we will explore innovative financing and solutions, which is one of the targets that we want to achieve throughout this process. Other forms of support to help you improve the supply of housing locally within countries and at the EU level.

Affordability is something that we have to work more on. And it’s easy because it's only about numbers. It's affordable or it is not affordable. And it has to do purely with the cost, as I believe we're not going to discount on the quality and the energy standards. At the final conference towards the end of this year, we aim to come up with a collective proposal for a concrete approach.

I personally will be leading the affordable and sustainable housing task force at the European investment Bank Group. As part of this, I will dedicate my time to support you and the colleagues preparing these events and workshops. We will also reach out to other IFIs, particularly the Council of Europe Bank, an expert on social housing and financing, but also the national promotional institutions. Improving social infrastructure like housing is one of the EIB Group’s core priorities because few things affect the quality of our lives more than our homes. And Europeans deserve quality, affordable homes, and our planet needs them to be sustainable as well.

Thank you very much for your participation. For those who haven't been on summer holidays yet, have a nice holiday and we will all catch up very soon in September.

Thank you very much.