On Monday 12 January, the members of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on housing (HOUS) welcomed the European Commission’s first-ever plan on the subject (see EUROPE 13774/23).
During an exchange of views with the European Commissioner in charge of this file, Dan Jørgensen, the MEPs welcomed in particular the proposals to regulate short-term rentals, the call to use all available EU funding instruments to create or renovate housing, and the Commission’s intention to gain a better understanding of speculation.
While the HOUS Committee is also preparing its report, which could be adopted in March, the Chair of the Special Committee, Irene Tinagli (S&D, Italian), hoped that this first plan would be “a starting point”, to be followed by legislative initiatives. She also called on Member States to commit themselves fully to this plan.
Dan Jørgensen pointed out that this very first plan would first and foremost provide “practical solutions and collective action” to the housing crisis by focusing on so-called ‘affordable’ housing (the middle classes), students and homeless people, but without affecting national competences.
“Every penny” of European funding will have to be used, and the new provisions on state aid rules, with a new category of services of general economic interest (SGEI) dedicated to intermediate housing (see EUROPE 13774/24), could “be a game-changer”. Cohesion policy and the InvestEU programme are already tools that can help finance housing, and the new pan-European platform created with the European Investment Bank (EIB) will also make it possible to obtain public and private investment.
With regard to short-term rentals and the regulation to be presented this year, the Commissioner reiterated that it would not be a question of banning them, but of giving the competent authorities the tools to intervene in areas said to be under pressure.
Criteria will be proposed, such as a limit on the number of overnight stays per year or reserving rentals for the summer period only. This last suggestion provoked a reaction from some MEPs, who wondered whether this would result in students being evicted from their accommodation during the summer holidays.
In any case, the Commission will not be able to impose a ban on the existence of empty homes, the Commissioner also explained to the Croatian Greens/EFA member, Gordan Bosanac, even though “one in five homes in the EU is currently empty”.
While some countries prohibit owners from leaving their homes vacant and require them to rent them out, this is not the case everywhere, and the Commission will never be able to impose such a measure, said the Commissioner.
The same goes for the definition of the right ratio between salary and rent, and “disposable income”, a question asked by Leïla Chaibi (The Left, French). It will not be up to the Commission to define a threshold or a definition of affordable housing.
Other MEPs pointed to other challenges as well, such as the shortage of labour in the construction sector, although a legislative initiative to facilitate the mobility of workers in this sector is intended to remedy these shortages by 2026. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)