European Economic
and Social Committee
EESC PLENARY: The EESC and its Civil Society Organisations’ Group continue to push for a solution to Europe’s housing crisis
Following the European Commission’s presentation of the European Affordable Housing Plan last December, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has gathered together relevant stakeholders to take stock of the ongoing housing emergency and discuss a way forward. The Committee aims to tackle speculation, address investment gaps and make sure businesses remain competitive.
Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, contributed with a video message to the EESC plenary debate. Joining the debate were also Matthew Baldwin, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and leader of the Commission’s Housing Task Force, Michaela Kauer, Director of the Brussels office of the City of Vienna and coordinator of the EU Urban Agenda Housing Partnership, Marie Linder, President of the International Union of Tenants and President of the Swedish Tenants’ Union, and Chiara Martinelli, Director of Climate Action Network Europe.
Housing is first and foremost a social issue,
said EESC President Séamus Boland, but it is no longer only that. It is an economic issue. A demographic issue. A competitiveness issue. This is why tackling the housing crisis is one of the key priorities of my term of office.
In the margins of the plenary, Cillian Lohan, President of the Civil Society Organisations’ Group, emphasised that his group had long advocated efforts to address the housing crisis and fully supported the European Affordable Housing Plan. He underlined the importance of the EESC’s participation in the first-ever EU Summit of Heads of State and Government, from which the European Housing Alliance is expected to emerge later this year.
Rudolf Kolbe, group vice-president, underlined the need to move from symbolic politics to action. Every Member State needs to have a reliable monitoring system for vacant housing and effective instruments against speculative vacant housing. Apart from increasing the number of square meters and surface area, the quality standards of the
New European Bauhaus Initiative
need to be applied to ensure that projects can be accepted and that the cost-of-living drops. Renovations cannot lead to evictions.
Baiba Miltoviča drew attention to the need to increase the renovation rate of building stock in the EU and of changing the way we renovate buildings. She mentioned that the EESC will work on an EU construction strategy, stating that we need to think about sustainability and innovations and scaling up modular offsite construction, promoting circular materials, addressing labour shortages through training, and aiming for more greening and a more digitalised sector.
Elena Calistru, current President of the EESC’s ECO section, spoke about the plan’s financing options and the EU budget proposals for the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), noting: we need to use the opportunity of the MFF negotiations to put our money where our mouth is.
Cohesion policy
is the only infrastructure in terms of financing at EU level that has the territorial dimension and the necessary outreach to make this plan a really valuable and impactful one. The proposed budget allocation is not enough to face the challenges we have.
Kinga Joó saw a relation between the housing crisis and declining family sizes. While welcoming the Commission’s focus on the affordability of housing, she urged for efforts to also address other specific needs of large families, stating that accessibility and affordability is also a right of those children who are now living in crowded apartments. In some cases, this is every second child in some countries in Europe.
Laura Albu spoke about housing in the context of domestic violence and stressed that the European Affordable Housing Plan must be the safety net of women fleeing violence with their children
. In Romania, women fleeing from violence desperately sought doors that lock from the inside. Housing is a fundamental right, but for these women, it is the right to life itself. Let’s ensure our plan doesn't just build units, but creates sanctuaries.