The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in cooperation with the City of Vienna and CECODHAS is organizing a Second Workshop on Energy Efficiency in Housing , to take place in Vienna, on 23 -25 November 2009. UNECE is currently collecting proposals from potential speakers at the workshop.

 23-06-2009
The regulation 397/2009 amending the ERDF regulation provides new opportunities to support energy efficiency investmens and greater use of renewable energies in existing housing in all EU-27 Member States. CECODHAS, with the support of Ms Danuta Hübner, EC Commissioner for Regional Policy, and sponsored by Husbanken, produced an information leaflet for all relevant stakeholders.

Citizens throughout the EU will elect the next European Parliament in June 2009. For the not-for-profit providers of affordable homes and sustainable neighbourhoods within CECODHAS, EU elections are an opportunity to improve people’s life chances and quality of life through better living conditions.

The workshop ‘Social enterprises delivering housing: Diversity of organisations in Europe for the same mission’, organized by CECODHAS in partnership with SCMBD (Union of Czech Housing Co-operatives) within the framework of the European Conference on Social Economy organised by the Czech Presidency of the European Union, was held in Prague on 17 April 2009.

Union Sociale pour l'Habitat (USH), the French professional organisation representing over 800 social housing organisations through 5 federations, has adopted its Manifesto for the European elections. The document was presented by USH President Thierry Repentin on the 5th of May, on the occasion of a conference where the head candidates of all lists for the elections were present. The Manifesto outlines a positive account of the ending legislative period, and presents the main challenges for the next period (2009-2014) making concrete proposals to future MEPs. 

The National Housing Federation London hosted an MEP Question Time at the UK Office of the European Parliament on Friday 15th May 2009. This event was an opportunity to find out more about the place social housing holds in Europe and to influence future decision makers. David Orr, CECODHAS President and NHF Chief Executive, spoke about the challenge of getting British voters interested in European elections while praising the work of Europe’s housing federations at an MEP Question Time in London on May 15. “European elections seem to disappear into the background,” Mr Orr said, adding that “a major problem in this country is getting people to engage in Europe.”

At the Conference of the Isles 2009, organised by the University of Ulster in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Housing, on the 7th and 8th of May, UK memebrs of CECODHAS  launched their joint manifesto for the European elections.The Four Federations, which include Community Housing Cymru, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations and the National Housing Federation represent housing associations in their respective UK territory.

The 5th Baltic Housing Conference “Housing in the Baltic States – time of new values” took place on 23 April 2009 in Tallin (Estonia) and cast a light on key European issues for housing organizations in the Baltic countries, in the run up to the European Elections. During the conference, David Orr, President of CECODHAS, explained its vision statement for a fair and sustainable Europe, and how social housing organizations can contribute to it, while Julien Dijol from the CECODHAS office presented the new ERDF rule on energy efficiency and renewable energy in existing housing in all 27 Member States.

The first UNECE Workshop on Energy Efficiency in Housing took place on 21-22 April 2009 in Sofia. The conference was an initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in partnership with CECODHAS, backed by the City of Vienna and hosted by the Bulgarian Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works.
This event will be followed by a second conference, to take place on 23-24 November in Vienna, and UNECE counts very much on continued cooperation and backing from CECODHAS.

After the opening of the Structural Funds to the energy-efficiency improvements in social housing, CECODHAS, the European network of national federations of social and cooperative housing, welcome another breakthrough in the field of EU regional development: the Barca report on the future EU cohesion policy rightly outlines the change of paradigm needed to make Cohesion Policy an efficient and fair policy to improve people’s quality of life.

The first European Day of Solidarity between Generations took place on the 29th of April.
All across the European Union, conferences and other events were organised around the theme of intergenerational solidarity. CECODHAS was partner in an awareness-raising campaign launched by the European Older People's Platform (AGE) together with other NGOs, which contributed to the success of the European Day by encouraging the organisation of intergenerational activities at grass root level as well as policy debates at local, national and EU level.

The Report, released by Yazid Sabeg, French Commissioner in charge of diversity and equal opportunities on 7 May 2009, contains 76 measures concerning youth access to work, promoting diversity, and urban policy.

Three banks in France, Spain and Italy are coming together to form Europe’s first ethical bank. The idea behind this ethical bank is to create a new financing mechanism to support the growing social economy. This ethical bank will adopt the status of a European co-operative company.

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung together with the International Union of Tenants (IUT) organized the expert roundtable “Decent housing for a Social Europe-Could European structural funds be the answer for the Eastern European housing sector?” on the 15th of April.