We had the honors of letting vice prime minister and minister of finances Vincent Van Peteghem open our Realty summit 2022. Looking back on the after-Covid period, he exclaimed the government’s success in giving families and enterprises the possibility to recover from the crisis. However, in the future, it will be crucial to focus on new measures, both short and long term, to achieve the goals concerning energy renovation and how available spaces are best utilized. Families should therefore be stimulated, through incentives, to renovate their homes.

“Our short term objective is to protect the purchasing power, but renewable energy must be discussed when thinking long term”, thus Van Peteghem. A tax cut to 6% for renovations is a good first incentive and surely other financial means can offer aid to this evolution.

Rounding off his introduction, Van Peteghem ended with a positive statement that calls for effort and teamwork from both the government and its citizens: “People should now get a signal to accept a lower standard of living and align with the governmental decisions.”