EU Peers Summit 2025 (3/3): How cities and regions are benefitting from One-Stop Shops

Part 3: How cities and regions are benefitting from One-Stop Shops, 15 October, 14:30–16:30
Comics Art Museum, rue des Sables 20, Brussels

The public event closed the summit. It brought together over 80 participants from EU institutions, national and regional agencies, municipalities and one-stop shops.

Policy framing. Pierluca Merola, policy officer at DG Energy, opened the event. He confirmed one-stop shops as key delivery instruments under the revised Energy Efficiency Directive (Article 25.6) and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, with forthcoming EU guidance on territorial access, neutrality and funding continuity. He called for a shift from short-term pilots to permanent public-interest services embedded in national and regional programmes: “it’s time to bring the benefits to the ground.”

Campaign launch. The event launched the EU Peers campaign “Give your citizens a home renovation gift box”. The campaign sets out what one-stop shops offer homeowners: tailored advice and step-by-step guidance, coordination of all renovation stages, access to affordable long-term financing, and quality assurance. See the Campaign for cities and regions.

Panel: “Why open a One-Stop Shop?” The panellists shared evidence that one-stop shops strengthen citizen trust and renovation uptake, stimulate local employment and SME growth, and help cities meet EU and national climate targets:

• Lina Bubulyte, Amiestas, City of Vilnius, Lithuania
• Máirtín Ó Méalóid, Energy Communities Tipperary Cooperative, Ireland
• Frédéric Leporq, Hauts-de-France Region, France
• Sébastien Descours, Filao Labs / Serafin, France
• Sam de Guchteneire, Winst uit je woning, City of Haarlem, the Netherlands

Key takeaways:

• One-stop shops are now recognised as strategic instruments for Europe’s renovation and decarbonisation goals.
• The main bottleneck is not capital but the lack of finance-ready, high-quality projects; one-stop shops bridge that gap.
• Long-term financing from several sources (Social Climate Fund, Recovery and Resilience Facility, regional funds) is essential for continuity.
• Communication should focus on comfort, health and wellbeing rather than technical metrics: “Don’t sell kWh, sell comfort.”
• Cooperation between EU, national and local levels is key to embedding one-stop shops in mainstream renovation policy.

The full account is in the EU Peers #2 Summit Report.

Earlier parts of the summit: Part 1: Practitioners’ workshop and Part 2: Belgian One-Stop Shop deep-dives.

Original invitation and agenda (PDF)