Luxembourg, 6 March 2025
- EU Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jørgensen joins EIB Group President Nadia Calviño to start laying the foundations of a pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing. This initiative underlines the importance of ensuring more affordable and sustainable housing in a productive economy.
- At EIB Forum, EIB Group announced upcoming launch of the EIB Action Plan to support housing, which includes a new housing one-stop-shop portal to provide advice and finance to support innovation in the construction sector, build affordable homes and invest in energy efficiency and the renovation of housing stock across Europe. EIB plans investments of around €10 billion over next two years.
- EIB Action Plan and one-stop shop portal are key building blocks of the pan-European investment platform that the European Commission and the EIB are working on and that are open to other players such as national promotional banks and international financial institutions.
The European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group are partnering with Europe’s national promotional banks (NPBs) and international financial institutions (IFIs) to develop new financing opportunities for affordable and sustainable housing across Europe. At the EIB Group Forum in Luxembourg today, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jørgensen and EIB Group President Nadia Calviño underlined the importance of tackling one of the most pressing concerns of citizens and governments in the European Union.They advocated a pan-European push that brings together local and national, public and private actors to catalyse finance and urgent action under the Commission’s upcoming European Affordable Housing Plan.
Their call comes as the EIB Group completes work on an Action Plan for Affordable and Sustainable Housing with planned investments of around €10 billion over the next two years. The EIB Plan will support local and national efforts to build more affordable homes, renovate existing housing stock to be more energy efficient and encourage more sustainable and innovative building materials and equipment. The EIB also launched a housing portal, a one-stop shop to support final beneficiaries to access advice and finance. The EIB Group’s investment aims to deliver 1.5 million new or renovated housing units across Europe. The EIB Action Plan and the portal are key building blocks for the pan-European investment platform, which will be open to other players such as NPBs and IFIs. The Council of European Development Bank has also signalled its interest in participating.
The lack of affordable housing in Europe, particularly in larger cities, is highlighted as an increasing concern in relation to Europe’s economic growth and productivity in the EIB Group’s investment survey based on feedback from around 13,000 European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The report, presented this week at the Forum, also notes low productivity and insufficient innovation in the European construction sector, adding to the cost and time of delivering housing projects. At the same time, the cost of energy and the impact of carbon-dioxide emissions are also a concern. Two-thirds of household energy consumption are used for heating homes and, with 46 million Europeans living in energy poverty, the energy efficiency of Europe’s housing stock is a key focus.
Working closely with the Commission and its new Task Force for Housing in the context of the European Affordable Housing Plan, as well as Member States, regions, cities and NPBs and IFIs, the EIB Group aims to raise the supply of affordable and sustainable housing in the EU. The approach rests on four pillars, which provide the general framework for the measures described further below:
- Partnerships with the European Commission and NPBIs/IFIs for easier access to finance and advice, based on complementarity with existing structures and products.
- EU-wide rollout: widening the regional scope of EIB Group support with an emphasis on EU countries with less mature housing systems and large unmet needs, where an enhanced advisory component will complement financing.
- Value-chain approach: opening up to new types of housing projects – from innovation in construction to real-estate development to ownership, with policy safeguards.
- Mobilisation of private sector: expansion of the client base to include private, for-profit promoters
In July 2024, the EIB Group’s newly established Housing Task Force organised a kick-off event featuring around 300 public and private stakeholders to discuss scaling up financial support for affordable and sustainable housing throughout the EU. The event was followed by technical meetings in the autumn with stakeholders to help shape a pan-European investment platform alongside the Commission.
Background
The European Commission is already active on housing, with support through the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Cohesion Policy Funds, InvestEU, LIFE and Horizon Europe, among others.
As outlined in the mission letter of Commissioner Jørgensen, the Commission will publish its first-ever European Affordable Housing Plan. The plan will offer technical assistance to cities and Member States and focus on investment and skills needed. The Commission will in particular develop a European Strategy for Housing Construction to support housing supply, establish a pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing, conduct an analysis of the impact of housing speculation, support Member States to double the planned cohesion policy investments in affordable housing, tackle systemic issues with short-term accommodation rentals and make proposals to tackle the inefficient use of the current housing stock and revise state-aid rules to enable housing support measures, notably for energy efficiency and social housing.
The European Investment Bank (ElB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States. Built around eight core priorities, we finance investments that contribute to EU policy objectives by bolstering climate action and the environment, digitalisation and technological innovation, security and defence, cohesion, agriculture and bioeconomy, social infrastructure, the capital markets union, and a stronger Europe in a more peaceful and prosperous world.
The EIB Group, which also includes the European Investment Fund (EIF), signed nearly €89 billion in new financing for over 900 high-impact projects in 2024, boosting Europe’s competitiveness and security.
All projects financed by the EIB Group are in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, as pledged in our Climate Bank Roadmap. Almost 60% of the EIB Group’s annual financing supports projects directly contributing to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and a healthier environment.
Fostering market integration and mobilising investment, the Group supported a record of over €100 billion in new investment for Europe’s energy security in 2024 and mobilised €110 billion in growth capital for startups, scale-ups and European pioneers. Approximately half of the EIB’s financing within the European Union is directed towards cohesion regions, where per capita income is lower than the EU average.
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Quote(s)
Ensuring more affordable and sustainable housing is a pressing issue. The Commission will enable Member States to increase cohesion funds for affordable housing and ensure our state-aid rules better support our goal of achieving more affordable housing. The EU is already mobilising substantial funding, for example via the Recovery and Resilience Facility But we will not stop there. Today we are kicking off the work with the EIB, national promotional banks and international financial institutions towards a pan-European investment platform to attract more public and private funding for housing. And, together with the European Parliament, we will consult intensively with Member States, cities, regions and all stakeholders to deliver the European Affordable Housing Plan.
Dan Jørgensen, Commissioner for Energy and Housing
Being able to afford a comfortable and warm home is a wish that unites every family and every community in Europe. Helping to make that possible for our citizens is a social responsibility and a fiscal challenge. It is also the foundation of any productive economy. That’s why we at the EIB Group and the European Commission are working full speed on a pan-European initiative that will be open for others to join.
Nadia Calviño, President of the European Investment Bank
Source – EU Commission
Keynote speech by Commissioner Jørgensen on ‘Partnering to boost affordable and sustainable housing across Europe’ at EIB Forum
Luxembourg, 6 March 2025
“Check against delivery”
Thank you, Madame President, dear Nadia, Teresa,
Rent has risen by about a quarter in the last 15 years in Europe, on average. House prices are up by about half. Last year, approximately 17% of our population was living in overcrowded houses and one in ten Europeans spent 40% or more of their disposable income on housing.
So these are all numbers but, behind these numbers are people:
Young people, forced to put off starting a family. Vulnerable people, threatened with homelessness. Students, who cannot take up university places. Workers, who cannot accept job offers. Rural communities, facing depopulation. Cities, unable to retain teachers, nurses or police officers, because they cannot afford to live where they work.
These people and their stories provide living proof of the housing crisis and the impact it has on Europe: how it threatens social justice and social cohesion; of how it weakens our economy and reduces our competitiveness.
It is for these reasons, and for these people, that President Von der Leyen tasked me with addressing this crisis.
So where do we begin?
The Commission has already established a new Housing Task Force, which will support me in delivering the European Affordable Housing Plan in early 2026.
For this year, 2025, a key focus will be on outreach, dialogue and partnership. The Commission will be listening to, and learning from, all of you. Together with the European Parliament we will soon launch the consultative process to ascertain key housing priorities at European level.
A number of these priorities are already very clear.
For example, we need to modernise the construction sector, to support the supply of affordable and sustainable housing. That will be the goal of the European Strategy for Housing Construction. We will seek to reduce building and renovation costs, to support more skilled workers, facilitate greater access to the Single Market, and harness the full potential of digitalisation and innovative building techniques.
We will also take a hard look at the permitting rules, to speed up planning and construction, and to make better use of vacant buildings. We will assess factors such as short-term rentals and speculation and address their economic consequences.
Putting my other hat on again – energy – we must also leverage the synergies between affordability and sustainability. Last week for example, the Commission adopted the Affordable Energy Action Plan, that I just mentioned, which will support households to improve energy efficiency, bring down bills, and avoid energy poverty.
Last year, between 45 and 47 million European were not able to adequately warm their homes. This is of course unacceptable.
We will team up with other institutions, such as the EIB and the European Parliament, to build partnerships, to bring in expertise from all relevant fields, and to share best practices between Member States, cities, and regions.
And of course, we must provide funding and finance, our prime focus here today.
The EU is already mobilising substantial funding. For example, the Recovery and Resilience Facility supports significant investments and reforms in housing across Member States: more than 22 billion euros is going into social housing and other social infrastructure; and an estimated 85 billion euros is going into energy efficiency renovations and the construction of new energy efficient buildings.
There are other important funding streams, such as InvestEU, LIFE and Horizon Europe., the Social Climate Fund, of course also.
The Commission will continue to push for more funding for housing. For example, we will encourage and enable Member States to double the amount currently planned under the Cohesion Policy Funds.
I will work closely together with Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera, who is also here, in the revision of State aid rules. And wherever possible, we will help to mobilise private investment, through InvestEU and the Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition.
We can be much more innovative in our investments, and we need to maintain strong cooperation, to ensure maximum synergy in spending.
So, I very much welcome the approach from the EIB and its emerging Action Plan on housing. Today’s launch of the investment portal is further good news – and a vital first step towards the pan-European investment platform.
This platform is central to our plans: it will enable us to gather together the different workstreams on funding and financing for affordable and sustainable housing and make it accessible.
I underline the full commitment of the Commission to work closely with the EIB and the EIF, as well as National Promotional Banks and International Financial Institutions, to make sure this Platform achieves its objectives.
The pan-European cooperation is essential: because the housing crisis presents a challenge to European values, European competitiveness, and European citizens. So it is time to take ownership of this challenge, and deliver a European solution.
Bringing on more investment is of course a key part of the solution, to make housing more affordable, sustainable, and decent.
So let’s invest in affordable housing: to drive our long-term competitiveness. To tackle homelessness and social exclusion. To help our communities become greener, healthier and more pleasant places to live.
Let’s remember that these investments go beyond bricks and mortar. When we invest in housing, we invest in people: teachers, nurses and police officers, so they can live among the children that they nurture, the people that they care for, and the neighbourhoods that they protect.
We invest in friends, families, and neighbours – the people who turn our villages, towns, and cities into communities; the people who turn our houses into homes.
On that note, I thank the EIB once again for hosting this very important event.
Thank you!
Source – EU Commission