How can the housing crisis in the European Union be tackled? On Monday 24 March, a conference jointly organised by the European Parliament and the European Commission launched the debate on the causes of this crisis, the ways in which the EU can help member states to tackle it, and the measures that can be taken at European level. The event highlights the role that MEPs intend to play in this highly sensitive issue in Luxembourg.
The EU parliament recently set up a special committee on the housing crisis in the EU, with a one-year mandate, to propose solutions to ensure access to decent, sustainable and affordable housing for all European citizens. The body has no elected members from Luxembourg. One of its objectives is to identify the problems associated with European regulations throughout the production cycle of private housing.
“Throughout the chain, the EU introduces additional costs and requirements, often without real necessity,” says Bavarian conservative MEP Markus Ferber, a member of the special committee. “Making land available for construction involves complying with environmental standards. During the planning stage, many EU rules must be respected. Construction must take into account regulations on permitted or banned materials. And finally, at the financing level, with the implementation of Basel III, we have increased capital requirements for mortgage loans, which has driven up the cost of housing loans for households.”
It is essential to reform European state aid rules.
What happens next? “The idea is to identify and summarise all these issues within a single year, which corresponds to the mandate of this temporary committee. Then the European Commission will need to propose legislative reforms based on our work,” Ferber explains. MEPs aim to contribute to the development of the European affordable housing plan, which the commission is expected to publish in early 2026.
Luxembourg MEP (S&D/LSAP) says he is closely following the work of this committee. Its creation, he recalls, “was in response to a request from my political group.” The Social Democrats are calling for massive investment to promote access to housing for people on low incomes.
“To enable these investments, it is essential to reform the European rules on state aid. Today, these rules are a brake, “stresses Angel. “Some in our ranks are going so far as to propose relaxing the Maastricht criteria for investment in housing--a bit like what is being done in the defence sector.” The homeless must also be one of the housing committee’s priorities, says the S&D group. “Almost a million Europeans are homeless. There are effective solutions, such as ‘Housing First’ in Finland. It works and we must invest in it.”
Towards a one-stop shop
The European Parliament’s special committee is one of a number of recent developments that reflect the growing importance of housing on the EU agenda. The new European Commission has organised itself to give visibility and weight to housing policy: for the first time, housing has become an area in its own right in the portfolio of a Commissioner, Dan Jørgensen of Denmark. Another change is the desire to decompartmentalise the approach. Around 18 commission directorates-general are involved in drawing up the affordable housing plan.
A concrete step forward was taken on 6 March: the EIB Group, the EU’s lending arm, to support the construction of affordable and sustainable housing in Europe over the next two years. This is a prelude to the forthcoming launch by the EIB of a new “one-stop shop” portal designed to provide enhanced technical support and strategic guidance to member states and cities. It’s an initiative that is part of a project for a “pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing.”
Recent institutional developments reflect real momentum.
Associate director and head of the social Europe and well-being programme at the Brussels-based think tank EPC, Elizabeth Kuiper sees this project as “a development to watch closely.” “Some of the elements individually--such as the need for private investment or the use of different EU funds for housing--are not entirely new. However, the fact that the EIB, the commission and other institutions are now actively trying to consolidate these efforts within a more coherent framework is a significant shift.”
Even though housing is not an entirely new topic for the EU, “the level of political attention it is receiving at the moment is remarkable,” the expert notes. “Recent institutional developments reflect real momentum. Housing played an important role in the 2024 European election campaign in several member states, notably in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. The recent wave of housing protests--especially among young people in several European cities--has helped elevate the issue to a political priority.”
Among current trends, “the EU is increasingly linking the issue of housing to social inclusion, economic resilience and climate goals,” observes Kuiper. Added to this is “the willingness to adopt EU-wide rules for short-term rentals--the Airbnb effect--which points to growing regulatory engagement.”
This article was originally published in .