Responding to the publication today of the European Affordable Housing Plan, CEO of the Irish Council for Social Housing Donal McManus said “Today’s plan is the first step in addressing the EU’s collective housing crisis.
Housing policy will still remain a national competence, but the measures announced will help to remove blockages to wider public investment in state-supported housing.
We welcome the proposal for greater public and private investment through a Pan-European Investment Platform for affordable and sustainable housing.
We particularly welcome the commitment to a revision of state aid rules that will provide greater certainty for Member States to deploy public funds for a much broader set of housing measures, including supports for middle-income affordable housing, as well as reducing the administrative red tape.
These state aid rules have been recognised as obstacles to wider interventions in the housing market by individual states, especially for affordable housing delivery.
Our members – Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) or housing associations – have been at the forefront of cost rental delivery as an important intervention in response to housing market failure. Cost rental will have a key role in supporting a functioning and stable housing system in Ireland and the new EU plan supports this.
Today’s report also highlights increasing levels of homelessness across Member States and proposes a Council recommendation on fighting housing exclusion via the forthcoming EU Anti-Poverty Strategy and through the work of the EU Platform on Combatting Homelessness (EPOCH). While this is welcome, the ICSH cautions that the use of vague language around ‘exclusion’ risks deprioritising the fight against homelessness, which is at the core of the EU-wide social crisis to which the Housing Plan responds.
Today marks a significant milestone, recognising that the housing crisis is a European crisis that cannot be resolved by member states individually, but which requires collective action and a new range of European supports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently stated in her State of the Union speech that the Commission will convene the first EU Housing Summit in 2026. Ireland’s EU Presidency in 2026 will be an opportunity for Ireland to take leadership and put housing at the top of the European policy agenda”.