Social housing in the EU - decent, sustainable and affordable

Background

Access to affordable, decent, sustainable, inclusive and resilient housing is both a social need and a social right: it is one of the 20 essential principles of the EU Pillar of Social Rights, in accordance with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (development goal 11) and in line with the Geneva UN Charter on Sustainable Housing and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. However, it is constantly being called into question by the various crises the EU has faced in recent years.

Today, housing is a major cause of the gradual erosion of the EU's economic, social and territorial cohesion. The availability, accessibility and sustainability of social and affordable housing are increasingly important concerns for EU citizens, especially for the most vulnerable groups. Many EU citizens and households are faced with excessive housing costs, with housing being their main consumer expenditure item and an excessive burden, to the detriment of other basic needs.

Although housing policy remains the competence of the Member States, the shortage of decent and affordable housing in the EU requires a European action plan on housing that includes a comprehensive set of measures to help Member States, regions and cities in Europe to sustainably boost the supply of social housing and effectively combat homelessness.

Low-income households, young people, people with disabilities, migrants and refugees are all population groups that can easily become vulnerable in the current crisis. Energy poverty rates are growing and rapidly reaching even middle-income families. Social housing policy and building renovation should therefore be treated as a priority for these groups to alleviate energy poverty and to achieve neighbourhood systems integration. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings should be a structural means of combating energy poverty.

The New European Bauhaus expresses the EU's ambition of creating beautiful, sustainable and inclusive places, products and ways of living. It highlights a new way of living where sustainability matches lifestyle, thus accelerating the green transition. The New European Bauhaus should help bring the EU closer to citizens and local urban and rural areas through appropriate communication, local initiatives and actions to be implemented, and through experiments in daily living and work places.

 

Key points

The EESC:

  • believes that there has been a market failure in housing. This must be tackled 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 the needs of young people and sustainability;
  • welcomes the appointment of a new Commissioner for Housing, who should be supported by an expert group, including representatives of the EESC and the European Committee of the Regions and asks to be involved as an observer or advisor in the work of the housing committee to be set up by the European Parliament;
  • calls on the Commission to recognise social housing as an essential and promising tool of active housing policies. In the medium term, the fundamental right to affordable, accessible and decent housing for everyone should be enshrined in EU primary law. The current approach, according to which housing policy should be a programme for households with the lowest incomes only, should be rejected and State aid law adapted accordingly in compliance with the services of general economic interest (SGEI) regulation system. In addition, housing indicators should be included in the national reform programmes and stability/convergence programmes;
  • welcomes the planned pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing. Moreover, non-profit property developers and cooperatives as well as local authorities should be able to obtain 0% interest rates via this platform or directly from the European Investment Bank for long-term loans;
  • calls on the Commission to support Member States by issuing recommendations to them where appropriate to set up a toolbox to curb out-of-control rent increases, including, for instance, statutory rent caps, a vacant residential home tax, fiscal incentives for renovating vacant residential home in view of renting them, more social housing, limits to short-term rental permits etc.;
  • calls for an action plan focusing specifically on improving access to affordable housing for young people.

 

Additional information

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

Opinion number: TEN/841

Opinion type: Own-initiative

Rapporteur: Thomas Kattnig (Group II - Austria)

Co-rapporteur: Rudolf Kolbe (Group III - Austria)

Date of adoption by section: 14 November 2024

Result of the vote: 58 in favour, 5 against, 15 abstentions

Date of adoption in plenary: 4-5 December 2024

Result of the vote: 134 in favour, 5 against, 13 abstentions

 

Contact

Marco Pezzani

Press Officer

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

E-mail: marco.pezzani@eesc.europa.eu

 

Ágota Bazsik

Administrator

Tel.: +32 546 8658

E-mail: agota.bazsik@eesc.europa.eu