The crisis in access to housing in the EU is “a social crisis. (...) It weakens our cohesion, and it also threatens our competitiveness”, commented Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address on Wednesday 10 September.
While the European Parliament has set up a special committee on housing and the Commissioner for Energy has also been tasked with looking into these issues, the president of the Commission has announced a first ‘EU Housing Summit’ as well as a legislative initiative on short-term rentals, as requested by the elected members of Parliament’s special committee, among others, and at a time when short-term tourist rentals are complicating access to housing for local residents.
The president also confirmed the presentation of a ‘European Affordable Housing Plan’ as well as the revision of “State aid rules to enable housing support measures”. “We need to make it much easier to build new houses and student residences”, she continued.
The day before, a European source indicated that the president intended to propose strong initiatives on the cost of living, particularly energy, and to “do more than has been done so far”. However, the housing announcements remain modest, according to Belgian Greens/EFA MEP Saskia Bricmont.
“Over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of things, a lot of promises, a lot of big plans with nice names, but I haven’t heard any concrete action on the social and climate fronts“. With regard to the major anti-poverty plan to eradicate poverty by 2050, “what about previous strategies and their results? Poverty is on the rise in Europe”.
We need “coherent policies to ensure that poverty is reduced. As for the housing plan that she had already announced, we need concrete implementation and European funds via the MFF to achieve these ambitions”, commented the elected representative.
On the social front, Ursula von der Leyen reiterated the Commission’s intention to work on quality jobs in the EU with a ‘Quality Jobs Roadmap’, which will contain legislative measures, as well as a ‘European Anti-Poverty Strategy’.
See the speech: https://aeur.eu/f/icl
See Ms von der Leyen’s letter of intent: https://aeur.eu/f/icn (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)