The alliance of European mayors, Mayors for Housing, led by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, sent a letter on October 21 to key European leaders urging them to take urgent action on housing, coinciding with the European Council meeting on October 23, where the housing crisis in the EU will be addressed for the first time.

The letter, addressed to the President of the European Council, António Costa; the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen; the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola; and the President of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, aims to ensure that the conclusions of the European Council are ambitious and empower EU institutions to adopt substantial housing policies, while also amplifying the voice and demands of cities within the main European institutions.

The document highlights the urgency of acting on housing, stating that “there is no time to lose,” and that European cities are ready “to collaborate with EU institutions to deliver an ambitious, substantial, and lasting response to the main crisis affecting our cities and citizens.” For cities, the European Council session is highly relevant because “it is essential that Member States acknowledge the scale of this crisis and empower the European Commission to act urgently.”

The mayors emphasize that housing “is the main source of social inequality in Europe. One of the major divides in our societies is between those who can access decent and affordable housing and those who cannot,” and they warn that “if the EU wants to prevent populism and Euroscepticism from gaining further ground across the continent, it must significantly increase its action on housing.”

The letter also stresses that cities are at the heart of the housing crisis and must therefore be at the forefront of the solution. “Any European response to the crisis must recognize its urban nature and work with cities as key agents of the solution. This involves, at a minimum, three key elements: agile financing, regulation, and decision-making capacity.” The mayors propose the creation of stressed housing market zones at the European level to make this possible. This proposal has already been submitted by Mayors for Housing to the European Commission as part of the public consultation for the European Affordable Housing Plan, which recently concluded.

Finally, the mayors acknowledge that “EU institutions are taking the right steps on this path,” and welcome the announcement by President Von der Leyen in her State of the Union address, in which she stated that the European Affordable Housing Plan will be presented this year and that European housing solutions must be rooted in local realities. They also support the creation of the Special Committee on the Housing Crisis in the EU within the European Parliament and the initiative by President Costa to include housing on the agenda of the European Council summit this Thursday, among others.

The letter is signed by the mayors of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; Paris, Anne Hidalgo; Rome, Roberto Gualtieri; Amsterdam, Femke Halsema; Athens, Haris Doukas; Bologna, Matteo Lepore; Copenhagen, Lars Weiss; Budapest, Gergely Karácsony; Dublin, Ray McAdam; Florence, Sara Funaro; Ghent, Mathias De Clercq; Leipzig, Burkhard Jung; the Vice President of the Lyon Metropolis, Renaud Payre; Milan, Giuseppe Sala; Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski; and Zagreb, Tomislav Tomašević.

The Mayors for Housing Alliance

Currently, the Mayors for Housing alliance is made up of 17 mayors from different parts of the continent and from various political backgrounds. Last May, the alliance presented a European Housing Action Plan, which calls for the mobilization of €300 billion in public and private funds annually and proposes the designation of stressed housing market zones to channel European funding directly to the areas most affected by the crisis, among other measures.