The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, met on September 30 in Brussels with the President of the European Council, António Costa, to present the needs and demands of the cities that are part of the Mayors for Housing alliance regarding housing. The meeting served to prepare the European Council session of October 23, at which the Heads of State and Government of the EU member states will discuss, for the first time, the housing crisis on the continent.

The meeting was also attended by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo; the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri; the Mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas; and the Mayor of Dublin, Ray McAdam; along with other representatives of the cities that are part of Mayors for Housing, such as the deputy mayors of Bologna, Lisbon, the Lyon Metropolitan Region, Ghent, and Zagreb. Mar Jiménez, the Commissioner for European Affairs of the Barcelona City Council, also attended.

Collboni stressed that the mayors had a first objective: to ensure that the issue of housing was included on the agenda of the October Summit, and this has been achieved. “The second objective,” he stated, “which we are already working on with the European Commission and which we have also shared with President Costa, was to present the plan that European cities have submitted.”

The mayor added that “it would be necessary to establish regulations so that cities could have direct access to funds to build or renovate housing, and that this should be part of the next European fiscal and financial framework.” “The lack of regulation is driving citizens out of their neighborhoods and cities.” He also recalled that the cities in the alliance “come from different regions, belong to different political families, but are united by a common concern: the urgent need for housing action at the European level,” and that “cities are on the front line of this urban crisis and, for that reason, we also want to be on the front line of the solution.” On the other hand, he stressed that “we believe the EU is taking the right steps.”

Finally, the mayor underlined that “housing is today the main source of social inequality across Europe, the main divide in our cities is between those who can afford decent housing and those who cannot”… “Failure to act will only generate greater social unrest due to the continuous rise in the cost of living, which prevents guaranteeing the right to housing.”

This meeting was an initiative of António Costa, who wanted to hear first-hand the needs and demands of European cities in order to include them in the debate among the member states. Since last July, representatives of Barcelona —on behalf of Mayors for Housing— and of the European Council have been engaging in dialogue to ensure that cities play a key role in shaping European housing policies.

The role of cities in European housing policies

Barcelona and other cities are leading the Mayors for Housing alliance with the goal of ensuring that cities have a key role in the design of housing policies at the European level. Currently, following the recent addition of Copenhagen, the alliance is made up of 17 cities that share concerns about the housing issue.

At present, Mayors for Housing includes Barcelona, Amsterdam, Athens, Bologna, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Florence, Ghent, Leipzig, the Lyon Metropolitan Region, Lisbon, Milan, Paris, Rome, Warsaw, and Zagreb.

Last May, Mayors for Housing presented the European Housing Action Plan, a document that outlines the cities’ proposals to address the housing emergency and the affordability crisis currently affecting Europe. Its main goal is to contribute to the drafting of the first European Affordable Housing Plan, which the European Commission will present at the end of 2025.