European Parliament: Madrid and Barcelona mayors provide differerent views on solving housing crisis

Madrid wants to build more housing, while Barcelona is looking to cap rent and restrict accommodation for tourists.

Transcript

00:00Soaring real estate prices and rising inflation, these are two factors currently making it

00:15very difficult to access housing in Europe.

00:19Exacerbated by the proliferation of short-term rental services like Airbnb, how can EU cities

00:26respond to the crisis?

00:28The centre-right mayor of Madrid advocates for a supply shock by favouring the construction

00:33of new housing.

00:34In the end, housing is solved by expanding the offer and, therefore, by generating more

00:40land to be able to build from the generation of legal security and legal security also

00:45for the tenants and for the landlords, legal security to avoid legal occupation, the construction

00:50of social housing and a framework of normative simplification that is absolutely essential

00:55under these premises.

00:57In Catalonia, rentals have been regulated in dense housing areas since last year, but

01:03the socialist mayor of Barcelona wants to go further and extend the rent cap to short-term

01:08rentals.

01:09He also wrote a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, co-signed by an alliance

01:15of 10 European cities including Rome and Amsterdam, asking to be at the forefront of housing policy

01:21and directly manage the EU funds allocated.

01:26The problem that we have at the moment in many European cities is that there is a collision

01:32between the right to housing and the right to the economic or touristic use of these

01:38houses.

01:39Well, what I have explained here is that in Barcelona we have opted to defend the right

01:43to access to housing above the touristic use of the house, and from there some regulations

01:49have to come and the European Union has to respect those regulations.

01:55The mayor of Barcelona wants the European Commission to provide legal cover for rent

02:00regulation, after it appointed a commissioner for housing for the first time ever.

02:06He is to propose new regulations in the coming months, though housing is ultimately managed

02:12by each member state.