EESC advocates housing as a fundamental right at its first-ever Housing Forum

Brussels, 5 December 2024

At its December plenary, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) held its first-ever Housing Forum, emphasising the urgent need for decent, sustainable and affordable housing across the European Union. The forum gathered high-level stakeholders to address the ongoing housing crisis and explore possible solutions.

Housing must be treated as a fundamental right, ensuring decent and sustainable accommodation for all Europeans, including young people and vulnerable groups. This was the overarching sentiment of the forum. The EU needs to take decisive action and establish a real right to housing for all people in order to reverse the housing crisis, where rising rents and property prices have placed housing beyond the reach of many. Specific calls were made to enshrine the right to housing in EU primary law, and climate-neutral renovations and collective housing solutions were put forth as innovations to follow.

The event was marked by the participation of prominent figures. Referring to the newly appointed Commissioner responsible for energy and housing, Dan Jorgensen, the EESC President Oliver Röpke welcomed the historical decision to create a specific portfolio on housing within the new Commission. Mr Röpke said: ‘housing is a fundamental right, not a privilege, and we cannot accept the exclusion of vulnerable populations from this essential need. As we confront a severe housing crisis affecting almost every Member State, I emphasise the urgent need to ensure that affordable, sustainable and decent housing becomes a reality for all.’

He continued on ways to achieve this, stating: ‘this requires tackling market failures, simplifying access to funds, and prioritising vulnerable groups, young people, and sustainability. We must work to enshrine the right to housing in EU primary law while fostering innovative solutions like collective housing and climate-neutral renovations. Together, we can create a future where everyone has a place to call home.’

Calling for a new outlook that sees housing as vital infrastructure for society, on par with health and education, Bent Madsen, President of Housing Europe, added: ‘we welcome the sentiment from the new housing Commissioner when he said that our approach should be based on values, rules and investment. We are ready as a public cooperative and as social housing providers to show the way to deliver the homes our people and our societies need.’

In this same vein, Marcos Ros Sempere, Member of the European Parliament, noted: ‘citizens are asking for solutions to solve the difficulties they face in accessing housing. To meet their expectations, we advocate a stronger European budget and strengthened cohesion policy to invest in improving existing infrastructure and in creating a public housing stock.’

The need for an EU action plan on housing

In the opinion Social housing in the EU – decent, sustainable and affordable, drafted  by Thomas Kattnig  and Rudolf Kolbe, the EESC recognises there has been a market failure in housing. This must be dealt with by improving framework conditions like data, coordination, approval procedures and land use planning rules, establishing a fundamental right to housing, providing sufficient funding, implementing the ‘housing first’ approach for homeless people and focusing more on sustainability and the needs of young people.

‘The housing crisis in the European Union is real,’ said Mr Kattnig. ‘Rising rents and exploding property prices are making housing unaffordable for more and more people. We need a comprehensive European action plan that establishes the right to housing, in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.’

‘Key measures to roll out would be social land policies, investments in sustainable construction, and a statistical tool at EU level to transparently monitor the housing market,’ said Mr Kolbe. ‘Our goal is clear: housing as a universal right, prioritising youth, sustainability and social justice. Let’s work together to achieve it.’

The debate with civil society representatives

During the debate, Georgi Stoev, member of the EESC’s Employers’ Group, pointed out that EU housing policy is essential and must be supported by reliable data, for instance through an EU transparency register for real estate transactions and for managing social housing programmes. He added that the Employers’ Group backed the EESC’s proposal to support the new Commissioner for housing by way of an expert group partly composed of EESC representatives, and that the group was ready to do its part to contribute to an action plan on housing.

On behalf of the EESC’s Workers’ Group, EESC member Carlos Manuel Trindade highlighted that the EESC opinion had come at a good time, because it addresses issues affecting all our societies and Member States, where thousands of people are facing economic difficulties. He emphasised that the opinion makes concrete points – such as the need for a functional housing market and for a specific European strategy on decent and sustainable housing – which should eventually be included in EU primary law.

Baiba Miltoviča, president of the EESC’s Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN) and member of the EESC’s Civil Society Organisations’ Group, spoke about the Declaration on Housing that she recently authored with Andres Jaadla, rapporteur on housing for the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), urging the European Commission to organise an annual EU summit on social and affordable housing, in partnership with the European Parliament, the EESC and the CoR, to bring together all the stakeholders involved in implementing measures on social and affordable housing in the Member States.