Source: European Parliament
The Commission shares the Honourable Member’s concerns about the housing situation in the EU. To tackle the housing crisis, the Commission has appointed for a Commissioner for Energy and Housing.
It has also established a Task Force for Housing that will support him coordinate the different strands of work across the Commission and put forward the first-ever European Affordable Housing Plan to address structural drivers of the housing crisis and to help unlock the public and private investment needed.
The Commission will work closely with all relevant stakeholders, such as the European Investment Bank, national promotional banks and international financial institutions on this matter[1].
In addition, the Commission is examining how state aid rules for housing could be revised, notably for energy efficiency and social housing .
To assist Member States, the Commission has published a toolkit[2] that provides an overview of available EU funding[3] opportunities in housing.
These funds and programmes have different management modes: i) direct management by the Commission; ii) shared management between the Commission and the Member State; iii) indirect management by partner organisations or other authorities inside or outside the EU.
The Social Climate Fund will also be soon rolled-out[4], which will notably help with renovations and access to affordable and energy-efficient housing.
The Commission is also working on a proposal to inject liquidity into the market by allowing Member States to double the planned cohesion policy investments in affordable housing.
The strategic choice of priorities on the use of the available cohesion policy funding (including reallocation into affordable housing) will depend on their specific needs.
- [1] As a first step, the Commission and EIB group has announced the foundations for a new pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing on 6 March 2025
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_671 - [2] Social Housing and beyond. https://european-social-fund-plus.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-launches-toolkit-support-social-housing-member-states
- [3] The Recovery and Resilience Facility; the European Regional Development Fund; the European Social Fund Plus; the InvestEU; the Horizon Europe; the Technical Support Instrument; the Single Market Programme; the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund; the Social Climate Fund (see the Commission toolkit for further details for each programme). In addition, the Cohesion Fund and the Just Transition Fund also support investments in the energy efficiency of housing stock. Details are available in the data story ‘how cohesion policy supports housing
’ (Cohesion open data platform): https://cohesiondata.ec.europa.eu/stories/s/2021-2027-cohesion-policy-support-to-housing/4dey-9iax - [4] The Member States’ plans to be sent to the Commission by June 2025; the Commission will assess the plans and disburse payments to the Member States only if the milestones and targets set in the plans are achieved.