Vitalii Bezgin, Minister for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, held a productive meeting with Karl Nehammer, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank. The meeting was also attended by Deputy Ministers Artem Husak and Nataliia Kozlovska.

The EIB has consistently supported Ukraine’s recovery: since 2022, the bank’s total support has amounted to over EUR 4.5 billion. One of the key new joint projects is the construction of social housing. EUR 100 million has been earmarked for this: a EUR 50 million loan from the EIB and a EUR 50 million grant from the European Union. These funds will provide homes, in particular, for internally displaced persons. In the first phase, the plan is to build such housing in two or three communities, to be selected from those previously recommended for participation in the pilot scheme: Lviv, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Kremenchuk, and Kropyvnytskyi. The agreement has already been signed. It is currently undergoing the ratification process, which MinRehion expects to be completed in the near future.

‘This project marks the launch of a new social housing system for us. People will gain access to housing on affordable rental terms, whereas communities will have an effective tool for addressing their residents’ housing needs. The foundations for this have already been laid by the law on the principles of housing policy. We are currently finalising, together with the EIB and the European Commission, a draft law on social housing which will set out how the system will operate. The pilot project will demonstrate how it works in practice, and we will then replicate this model across other communities,’ said Vitalii Bezgin.

The parties also discussed a project on the energy efficiency of public buildings: modernisation is already underway in 19 communities. As demand from communities exceeds available resources, discussions centred on expanding the loan and introducing new components to the project.

The parties also agreed on the following steps:

• to prepare specific social housing construction projects in the cities that are part of the pilot project, with a view to presenting them at the next Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC);
• to work jointly to ensure that loan and grant agreements for the energy-efficient refurbishment of damaged blocks of flats (the DAKH programme worth EUR 120 million) are signed before the end of this year;
• to jointly undertake technical preparations for the implementation of all ongoing projects within the MinRehion’s policy remit from the start of 2027, as well as develop additional technical support for the preparation and implementation of projects, particularly at community level. They are interested in the GROUND, JASPERS, PPF First, and UMITAF instruments, which will help both the Ministry and communities better prepare and implement investment projects.

In addition, MinRehion proposed to separately explore the creation of social housing for small communities, so that providing people with housing is combined with the creation of jobs.