Faced with accommodation expenses that outstrip wages and leave 47 million Europeans shivering, the European Commission has told MEPs it will strike back with an EU-wide Affordable Housing Plan this year. Looser state-aid rules, anchored by a 14 per cent social-spending floor, are to help capitals bankroll cheaper homes.
At an extraordinary meeting of the European Parliament’s Housing Committee on 20 October, MEPs grilled Roxana Mînzatu, the commissioner for social rights, on what Brussels can do to stem Europe’s housing emergency. Ms Mînzatu reminded them that the crisis is eating into the fabric of the Union’s cherished social model. Housing, she insisted, is “a right and not housing as a commodity, not housing as an investment tool”. Prices have risen by 30 per cent in a decade, rents by 50 per cent. One European in 10 now spends more than 40 per cent of income on shelter; 47 million people cannot afford to heat their homes.
The commissioner promised a two-step response: an EU-wide Affordable Housing Plan later this year and, early in 2026, the Union’s first anti-poverty strategy. Both will be lashed together. “Housing and poverty runs in both directions,” she warned. Homelessness—already afflicting about one million citizens—will be tackled through a “housing first” approach that gives people a roof before treating other problems. The Brussels platform on homelessness, created in 2021, will be beefed up to help member states share data and funds.
Ms Mînzatu also sketched plans to loosen state-aid rules so that governments can subsidise not only traditional social housing but a new category of “affordable housing”. That, she said, should expand supply without crowding out existing schemes.
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New rules, new funds
MEP Nikolina Brnjac (EPP/HRV), welcomed the ambition yet feared that investment would bypass poorer regions. “Addressing the housing crisis must go hand-in-hand with promoting skills,” she said, adding that EU funds “can play a stronger role” by supporting rent allowances and targeted help for the young. Ms Mînzatu replied that the post-2027 budget will bake flexibility into cohesion funds, letting capitals channel cash quickly into bricks and mortar. Social policy is “in the DNA of all our work,” she argued; competitiveness and fairness are “two sides of the same coin”.
MEP Andreas Schieder (S&D/AUT) pressed for clearer definitions. “What you have been saying on affordable housing is the big issue,” he told the commissioner. He wants rules that keep subsidised flats affordable even after aid expires. Ms Mînzatu said a 20-year safeguard is being tested. The same member worried that homelessness policy must focus on prevention as well as cure. The commissioner assured him that the Social Fund Plus will back both objectives.
Yet another member, Antonella Sberna (ECR/ITA), highlighted inter-generational strains. Erasmus students cannot find rooms; pensioners struggle with care and heating. She asked, “How can we put this in a European accessible or affordable housing plan so that these two worlds can coexist?” Ms Mînzatu promised to weave care services into the coming anti-poverty blueprint and to let universities tap cohesion cash for new dormitories. For needy students the Commission may convert the Erasmus “fewer-opportunities top-up” into an “inclusion and housing” supplement.
Follow the money
Much of the evening turned on funding. The commissioner rattled off a range of programmes—the Recovery and Resilience Facility, InvestEU, the Social Climate Fund—and noted that the next multi-annual budget will oblige member states to earmark at least 14 per cent of cohesion support for social spending, including housing. Yet she conceded that “we are seeing still that we have long waiting lists, important financing gaps in many regions”. That acknowledged a truth cited by every speaker: policy instruments are plentiful, delivery patchy.
State-aid reform should help. Adding an “affordable housing” label alongside “social housing” will reassure local authorities that subsidies are legal, Ms Mînzatu said. Projects could then mix public money with private capital without breaching competition law. She also hinted that Brussels will demand post-aid rent controls so that subsidised flats do not flip into the market at full price.
Addressing the housing crisis must go hand-in-hand with promoting skills. — MEP Nikolina Brnjac (EPP/HRV)
The commissioner’s second pillar is data. Without better statistics on rents, vacant property and homelessness, policies misfire. The homelessness platform will therefore intensify monitoring. And in the annual European Semester of economic surveillance Brussels will prod capitals that lag behind.
Skills portability matters
Supply, though, hinges on builders. Europe counts 13 million construction workers but may need 20m to meet demand. MEP Ciaran Mullooly (Renew/IRL) said low apprentice pay is scaring recruits. “We must move with the member states and with our budgets to ESF and otherwise,” she urged. “These sub-minimum wages rates for apprentices in their first years are deterring new recruits from entering the profession.” Ms Mînzatu did not dispute the maths. She promised a fair-labour-mobility package next year to clamp down on fraud and improve conditions for posted workers, plus a skills-portability scheme to recognise diplomas swiftly across borders.
The commissioner also touted her large-scale partnership for skills, which aims to upskill or reskill 3m construction workers by 2030. Funding is available, she said, but companies and unions must design demand-driven courses. Mr Mullooly’s call for higher apprentice wages landed on sympathetic ears; the Social Fund Plus can partly foot that bill, the commissioner hinted, but wage deals remain a national prerogative.
We need mobile workers in construction but we need them trained and well paid and protected. — Roxana Mînzatu, EU Commissioner for social rights and skills, quality jobs and preparedness
To MEPs’ surprise, student housing received equal billing. Soaring rents in university towns threaten EU mobility. Ms Mînzatu lauded experiments blending Erasmus grants with national top-ups. She urged member states to use InvestEU loans for dormitories, noting that a shortage undermines “the political glue of the next generation”.
Political bottlenecks
The hearing exposed familiar tensions: committee members want quick action; the Commission pleads for time to rewrite rules and re-programme budgets. For now the executive’s remedy is incremental. Ms Mînzatu hopes that tweaking state-aid law, bundling funds and cajoling capitals will spur building. She quoted no headline target for new homes; nor did she propose binding standards. Yet her message was clear. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to talk about the European social model” when teachers and nurses cannot afford a flat in the cities they serve.
Whether Parliament is satisfied remains open. Several MEPs signalled they will push for tougher earmarks in the next budget round and for an explicit homelessness-eradication deadline. Ms Brnjac wants the Social Climate Fund folded tightly into cohesion spending; Mr Schieder seeks a guarantee that affordable units stay affordable; Ms Sberna demands a housing pillar for Erasmus. All believe that binding goals would stop capitals backsliding once headlines fade.
Labour, not land, may prove the biggest bottleneck. Commissioner Mînzatu endorsed an Irish idea to start “voluntary industry-regulated construction site training” in secondary schools and promised Brussels support. Apprenticeship pay, she admitted, is dire: “We present next year the VET strategy.” That blueprint will sit beside a quality-jobs roadmap and a fair-labour-mobility package aimed at long subcontracting chains. “We need mobile workers in construction but we need them trained and well paid and protected,” she told MEPs.
Sticks and carrots
Several deputies pressed her to ring-fence EU cash. The commissioner resisted quotas, yet hinted at leverage. The next budget will oblige states to dedicate at least 14 per cent of cohesion money to social aims. “This minimum target of fourteen per cent is a beginning,” she said. Brussels will also monitor national plans and, if necessary, tell capitals that spending tilted towards private development “is not a good direction”.
Ms Mînzatu insisted the right carrots already exist. ESF Plus can top up apprentice wages; InvestEU can guarantee rural schemes that ease pressure on city centres. Accessibility is a non-negotiable: any new build financed with EU money must cater for disabled and elderly citizens. Whether those sticks and carrots entice enough masons and roofers into the trade will decide if the affordable-housing plan is more than a wish list.
These sub-minimum wages rates for apprentices in their first years are deterring new recruits from entering the profession. — MEP Ciaran Mullooly (Renew/IRL)
The Commissioner invited written input to the anti-poverty consultation closing this week. “Please be aware,” she said, “that we want to feed your work and the consultation contributions into a good quality policymaking on this topic.” She may need every suggestion she can get. Europe’s feeble housing supply has been decades in the making; undoing the damage will test the Union’s capacity to act, along with its vaunted social conscience, for years to come.
