Interview with Volodymyr Vladyka, Policy Officer at BPIE

With only a few months to go before the 29 May 2026 transposition deadline of the recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), attention is turning to how Member States are preparing to implement one of the EU’s most transformative pieces of legislation. The next closest step for Member States is national submission of draft National Building Renovation Plans (NBRPs) by 31 December 2025, which are at the heart of EPBD implementation efforts. NBRPs are the central planning tool designed to guide Member States in transforming their building stock into a sustainable, resilient and decarbonised asset. 

To understand how countries are progressing in drafting their NBRPs, BPIE surveyed 52 respondents across 19 Member States from July to September 2025. Given the timing, the focus was on how public consultation processes have been organised and how stakeholders on the ground view the development of their national plans.  

#AskBPIE sits down with Volodymyr Vladyka, BPIE’s Policy Officer, to find out what the impact of the new process is across Member States, and how countries can overcome some initial barriers to implementation. 

Why are the NBRPs important? What is their potential to enact change, and why is it important that Member States get the process right? 

Europe’s built environment plays such a central role in our economy and in people’s daily lives. On top of that, they’re where Europeans spend over 90% of their time. So, the way we renovate and transform buildings has a fundamental influence on energy use, emissions and people’s well-being. 

If done well, NBRPs can become a leading tool for Member States to drive a systematic transformation of their national building stock. But NBRPs’ potential for impact really depends on how seriously countries take the process of their development and the implementation that follows. A robust NBRP can unlock many of the benefits associated with building renovation: from better national energy security and improved resilience to increased flexibility in the energy system, better health and productivity for people, and a future-proof construction sector and workforce. 

Another strength of NBRPs is that they should be developed in synergy with other planning processes: for example, national decarbonisation plans like NECPs or Social Climate Plans, local heating and cooling strategies, and even work on housing affordability. They’re also highly relevant to broader EU priorities such as energy security and reducing dependence on Russian fossil fuels.  When those links are made, NBRPs are a tool for countries to address their strategic challenges.  

But that only happens if their development is solid. That means the plans need to include not just strong technical content (like including clear indicators on the state of the building stock and a future roadmap with defined policies and measures, as required under Annex II of the EPBD) but also a good governance process. Public consultation and democratic deliberation are essential to making sure the plans are credible, inclusive and fit for purpose. 

Based on the survey findings, what are the main strengths and weaknesses you see in how Member States are currently organising consultations? 

What really stood out in the survey is that Member States were at very different stages of developing their National Building Renovation Plans, and their approaches to implementation varied substantially. By early September, it was clear that public consultations were simply not a priority in many countries. A few had taken positive steps, for example, by creating dedicated task forces to lead the process and coordinate public engagement, but overall, much more needs to be done to ensure meaningful public involvement. 

Only a small number of Member States had taken concrete measures to consult the public on their NBRPs at the time of BPIE’s survey. If Member States were following a good process, we would have seen more public involvement happening much earlier, across the bloc. That’s an early warning sign that some countries may run into delays, or even see the quality of their plans affected because the consultation process wasn’t strong enough. 

Across the responses, we saw four recurring challenges: first, ensuring broad-ranging inclusivity, so that different groups in society are actually represented; second, providing transparent information about how the NBRP is being developed; third, having enough administrative capacity to run the process effectively; and fourth, political certainty and continuity to carry the work through. Those gaps suggest that, in many Member States, the consultation process still needs attention if the Member States want to have robust and credible NBRPs. You can see additional information on these challenges in our ‘NBRP: Highlights from BPIE’s progress survey’. 

What are some success stories from across the EU, and what can countries learn from them? 

There are a couple of strong examples that show what good practice can look like. Spain is one of them: they set up a very dynamic co-creation process and ensured good inclusivity during the pre-public consultation phase. The process involved work with expert groups dedicated to topical focus areas, and working groups dedicated to different levels of governance and sector interests. That kind of early and diverse engagement really helps build public involvement and collective ownership of the plan. 

Poland is another good example. They started their pre-public consultation very early, and they already had an initial draft of the NBRP available at that stage. That gave stakeholders something concrete to react to, which is an effective way of improving both transparency and quality. Those experiences show that starting early and involving people from the outset can make a real difference. 

What would be your recommendations to national governments? 

The survey results reinforce the recommendations we set out in our guide ‘Delivering the EPBD: A guide towards better, affordable and more resilient buildings for all in Europe’, where we include implementation recommendations and good practice examples on both the content and process of NBRPs. To achieve successful public consultations, the Guide (see Chapter 1.2) recommends looking at three aspects: openness and transparency, inclusivity and effectiveness.  

Moreover, the results of BPIE’s survey draw attention to two additional aspects. First, governments need to prioritise the drafting of the NBRP internally. That means allocating more human resources to the management of the process, including to organisation of public consultations, so that these plans don’t become an administrative afterthought. 

Second, NBRPs should be created collectively, with broad societal ownership: involving citizens, businesses, sub-national authorities and others. When more voices are included, the plan is much more likely to remain relevant and applicable, even if political contexts change in the future. That kind of continuity is essential if the NBRPs are going to guide action for years to come. 

With more attention given to developing NBRPs, Member States can unlock all possible benefits from building transformation and pave the way to a future-proof building stock that will contribute to national and European strategic objectives.