Making Housing Affordable – Increasing Modern Methods of Construction and Lowering Costs

Background

How can modern construction methods help reduce housing costs by boosting supply? 

This EESC opinion tackles housing shortages and has been requested by the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The opinion deals with the framework conditions needed to increase the supply of repurposed, renovated and new housing, and provides guidance to relevant actors. It takes into consideration civil society’s expectations and concerns as well as the priorities put forward by the Irish Presidency.

The construction sector remains characterised by relatively low productivity growth and fragmented supply chains. Scaling up industrialised approaches, including modular, prefabricated and off-site building, offers significant potential to reduce construction timelines, improve quality control, increase industry capacity, improve productivity and lower overall costs.

The EESC has been working on housing for many years. In recent months, the Committee adopted an opinion on the EU Strategy for Housing Construction (July) and on Tackling housing scarcity through affordable, sustainable and family-oriented housing policies (March). Currently, the EESC is assessing the Affordable Housing Act which the European Commission unveiled on 9 September 2026 and is expected to adopt the opinion EU Affordable Housing Act in December.

Key points

The EESC:

• believes that modern methods of construction (MMC) are one of the key enablers of the circular economy in the construction sector. It is essential that MMC buildings have the same long-term quality and value as traditionally built homes. The EU needs to drive forward targeted investment in the development of industrial capacity to manufacture prefabrication offsite construction systems.
• underlines that all Member States, the Commission, the Housing Alliance and all stakeholders have a role to play in promoting standardisation, eliminating fragmented regulations and ensuring proper oversight and certification of the MMC systems. While acknowledging that each Member State has primary competence as regards housing, the EESC deems desirable for the Commission to have input into individual Member State plans for housing, as well as promoting cross border cooperation. The EU must launch a central funding mechanism to encourage and enable SMEs to invest in digitalisation. Digitalisation should not be limited to construction projects. It should also be leveraged to strengthen labour rights enforcement, job quality, working conditions and consumer interest.
• stresses that MMC must be seen not merely as a technological or market driven issue, but part of a broader social, labour market and industrial policy strategy. MMC can become a key driver of affordable housing, but only if innovation, quality, workers’ rights and public interest objectives advance together. Public housing programmes can play a decisive role in scaling up MMC markets while ensuring SMEs can participate. Large scale skills mapping and anticipation of future needs is needed to effectively address labour and skills shortages.

Additional information

Section: Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN)

Opinion number: TEN/889

Opinion type: Exploratory opinion Presidency

Rapporteur: John Comer (Group III - Ireland)

Co-rapporteur: Thomas Kattnig (Group II - Austria)

Date of adoption by section: 4 September 2026

Result of the vote: 89 in favour, 0 against, 1 abstention

Date of adoption in plenary: 23-24 September 2026

Result of the vote: 197 in favour, 2 against, 3 abstentions

Contact

Marco Pezzani

Press Officer

Tel.: +32 2 546 9793 | Mob: +32 470 881 903

E-mail: marco.pezzani@eesc.europa.eu

Francesco Napolitano

Administrator

Tel.: +32 546 8921

E-mail: francesco.napolitano@eesc.europa.eu