Today, the European Parliament approved the report on the housing crisis, which is now spreading across the continent and primarily affecting working-class people — but increasingly also the middle class.
We voted firmly AGAINST.
Because the proposed “solutions” do not address the root causes of the crisis. On the contrary, they reinforce the same logics that created it:
- Free market
- Real estate speculation
- Financialisation
We tried to improve the text.
Together with my colleagues in The Left, we submitted 35 amendments to truly change the approach of the report. But most of our proposals — reasonable, even moderate — were rejected.
Here are some examples:
- Amendment 30: Calls on Member States to discourage speculative accumulation of empty housing through fiscal and regulatory measures.
- Amendment 32: Highlights the need to prevent criminalisation of occupation of vacant housing, especially public property and buildings owned by individuals with multiple residential units, where occupation is carried out by people unable to afford housing at prevailing market rates; invites Member States to encourage renovation of abandoned or deliberately neglected buildings.
- Amendment 34: Urges Member States to implement protection measures for people unable to pay rent, including banning eviction for non-payment where no dignified alternative housing exists; calls for special protection to ensure minors are not evicted and for a European winter eviction moratorium.
- Amendment 38: Requests legal and social safeguards to fully protect primary residences, including a general moratorium on mortgage foreclosures, forced evictions, and auctions.
- Amendment 40: Calls on Member States to guarantee specific quotas for women fleeing domestic violence, sexual exploitation, or human trafficking in social and public housing programmes and integrated housing support services.
- Amendment 41: Stresses the importance of investing in public housing capable of influencing overall market conditions and urges the Commission to propose a European plan for the construction of public and social housing to reduce inequalities.
- Amendment 42: States that no housing unit built entirely or partially with public funds, or which has received financial support from public resources regardless of amount, should be sold, transferred, or otherwise placed on the private housing market.
- Amendment 43: Invites the Commission to propose a new directive to regulate short-term rentals fairly.
- Amendment 44: Calls on Member States and local authorities to use all existing tools to combat abuses linked to “Airbnb-isation”, particularly through primary residence zones and maximum quotas for units for tourist rentals in high-demand areas.
- Amendment 47: Invites the Commission to propose a binding European framework to curb housing and real estate speculation and prevent excessive rent increases.
This was a missed opportunity.
Real estate lobbyists continue to set the agenda for European housing policy. To achieve real change, we must build a counter-lobby for the right to housing. We need to assert the rights and organise the strength of everyone who is paying the price of the housing crisis.
Housing is a right, not a commodity or a financial asset, and certainly not a speculative good.
Housing for all, poverty for none!
