The guidance presented here is grounded in three interconnected pillars of analytical work carried out within the EPBD.wise project.

The first pillar is a structured assessment of policy needs across six focus countries — Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Ukraine — which identified seven key areas where Member States require support. These range from improving building stock data collection to strengthening investment planning and deepening stakeholder engagement.

The second pillar comprises detailed country-level policy guidelines, developed and tested for Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Five renovation scenarios were modelled and assessed, spanning the full spectrum from strong regulatory approaches to purely market-based strategies, providing decision-makers with a clear picture of what different policy choices can deliver.

The third pillar extends this analysis to all EU-27 Member States, using a clustering methodology to group countries by shared characteristics. Six representative countries — Ireland, Italy, Czechia, Germany, Lithuania and Croatia — were then selected for comparative analysis, enabling findings to be generalised across the wider EU context.

The scenario results are unambiguous: combining regulatory standards with economic incentives consistently outperforms either approach in isolation. Under the most ambitious scenario modelled — which pairs minimum energy performance standards for both residential and non-residential buildings with a fossil boiler ban and moderate financial incentives — all six representative countries achieve primary energy demand reductions of between 15% and 22% by 2030, and between 26% and 36% by 2035. These trajectories are broadly aligned with the targets set out under EPBD Article 9.

By 2050, primary energy demand reductions across the six countries range from 53% (Czechia) to 65% (Italy and Ireland). The fossil fuel share in the final energy mix falls from as high as 83% in Ireland in 2020 to below 12% across all countries — but only where policy ambition is maintained. Where scenarios omit a fossil fuel ban or residential minimum energy performance standards, the pace of fossil fuel phase-out slows markedly, particularly in Germany, Croatia and Ireland.

These findings carry clear implications for how Member States design their NBRPs and the policy mixes they put in place to deliver them.