"There are more than two million detached houses in Hungary, built mainly between 1945 and 1990, that are in need of energetic modernisation. Renovation work would partly be realised with the help of European Union funding", said the Ministry of Rural Development's Minister of State of Environmental Affairs Zoltán Illés at a press conference on Friday.

Péter Szaló, the Ministry of Interior's Deputy State Secretary for Area Management, Construction and Heritage, told reporters that the Ministry has prepared a cost optimalisation programme with which it will be possible to determine which homes can be modernised cost effectively. The Deputy State Secretary spoke of a paradigm shift in European architecture, according to which a building's energy consumption has become a factor of equal importance to the cost of construction.

Stricter energy regulations will come into force from 2015 with regard to public buildings, and from 2019 concerning private buildings, he continued. Then, the requirement of close to zero energy use will come into effect within the European Union with regard to public buildings from 2019, and in relation to private buildings from 2021.

With reference to a cost-efficiency survey, he pointed out that during the course of energy modernisation, replacing windows is not always cost-effective in itself, and the insulation of walls and ceilings is often also required. The greatest savings can be achieved if the house's heating system is also modernised. Switching to wood heating can produce savings, but investments in pellet stoves or geothermal heat pumps do not always produce a return in the short term.

Attila Imre Horváth, the Ministry of National Development's Deputy State Secretary for Green Economy Development, Climate Policy and Key Public Services, stated that the National Building Energetics Strategy would be completed this year. In addition to the Ministry of Interior's cost effectiveness programme, the Strategy is being developed on the basis of the energy data of 23,000 buildings and the work of several engineers and economists. The magnitude of the task is indicated by the fact that the planning, which began in September 2012, is likely to be completed in the autumn of this year, after which it will provide a suitable professional basis for the launching of a suitably well thought out, substantiated and sustainable building modernisation programme.

With relation to the application of renewable energy resources, he noted that in view of the fact that European Union member states have become incapable of maintaining their earlier funding system, the launching of support and funding systems based on their model is not in the interests of Hungary.

At the conference, several arguments were made in favour of the energy modernisation of listed buildings that form part of the national heritage, in reaction to which Minister of State Zoltán Illés indicated at the press conference that the elaboration of a special tender for the energy modernisation of listed buildings is being given serious consideration.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of National Development Communications Department)