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Lakásválság - Európa szociális stabilitásának próbája? Összecsapnak az európai parlamenti képviselők a Ringben
Az Európai Parlament brüsszeli székházából sugárzott The Ring új kiadásában Dirk Gotink (néppárti) és Maria Ohisalo (zöldek) európai parlamenti képviselők beszélgetnek egymással az Európában egyre súlyosbodó lakhatási válságról.
BŐVEBBEN : http://hu.euronews.com/2026/04/28/lakasvalsag-europa-szocialis-stabilitasanak-probaja-osszecsapnak-az-europai-parlamenti-kep
Iratkozzon fel: Az Euronews elérhető 12 nyelven
Az Európai Parlament brüsszeli székházából sugárzott The Ring új kiadásában Dirk Gotink (néppárti) és Maria Ohisalo (zöldek) európai parlamenti képviselők beszélgetnek egymással az Európában egyre súlyosbodó lakhatási válságról.
BŐVEBBEN : http://hu.euronews.com/2026/04/28/lakasvalsag-europa-szocialis-stabilitasanak-probaja-osszecsapnak-az-europai-parlamenti-kep
Iratkozzon fel: Az Euronews elérhető 12 nyelven
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NewsTranscript
00:08Hello and welcome to The Ring, Euronews' weekly debate show broadcasting from the European
00:14Parliament here in Brussels. I'm Stefan Grobe. On The Ring, elected members of the European
00:20Parliament go face-to-face on some of the biggest issues facing the EU. Today, we're
00:25going to talk about the situation that weighs on more and more people in Europe, the housing
00:30crisis. Europe's housing crisis is no longer looming. It's already squeezing those least
00:39able to afford it, renters and low-income households. Over the past decade, prices have surged while
00:47wages have stagnated, leaving millions struggling to afford basic housing. The pressure is especially
00:54intense in Southern Europe, where rising rents over tourism and short-term rentals in cities
00:59have pushed locals out, fueling protests and political backlash. At the same time, there
01:05is a lack of infrastructure. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands are missing construction
01:09targets and deadlines, while waiting lists for social housing keep growing. The European Union
01:16is pushing for more investment and simpler rules to boost affordable housing supply, but governments
01:21remain divided on how far to go. The crisis is no longer just about housing. It is becoming
01:27a test of Europe's economic model and social stability. So who should pay to fix it? And how?
01:36A lot to unpack here for our contenders, and here they are.
01:42Dirk Gotting, a Dutch MEP from the Central-Right European People's Party. He serves in the Committee
01:48on Economic and Monetary Affairs and is the Vice-Chair of the European Parliament's Special Committee
01:52on the Housing Crisis in the EU. Regarding the EPP-led Housing Report, recently adopted by the
01:58European Parliament, he said, the EPP Group wants more affordable homes, build faster. We need simpler
02:04EU rules to cut red tape, speed up permits and treat housing with the same urgency as defense projects.
02:11Maria Ohisalo, a Finnish MEP from the Greens European Free Alliance Group. She previously served as
02:17Finland's Minister of Environment, managing policy on construction and housing. As an MEP, she is a
02:22member of the Special Committee on the Housing Crisis. Critical of the Central-Right-Backed Housing
02:27Report recently adopted by the European Parliament, she said, in this report, housing is not considered
02:33primarily as a human right and as a cornerstone of dignity, but as a tool that can be used for
02:38speculation.
02:39So let me welcome to the ring Dirk Gotink and Maria Ohisalo. Great to have you here. Good to see
02:45you.
02:45Thanks for the invitation.
02:46I think the core question right now is why are housing costs rising faster than wages almost everywhere?
02:54One of the key questions is the speculation, financialization of housing market that homes are not considered
03:01primarily as human rights, but as asset classes for big hedge funds, companies, private investors.
03:08And then just saying that we should build and get more investors to the market, this will not solve the
03:14problem. We need more affordable housing and available housing for everybody.
03:19But somebody has to build them, right?
03:20Exactly. And this kind of state-sponsored sort of subsidies will only drive up more of the prices. We want
03:26to
03:27fix the problem in the market because building materials are getting very expensive, which is one of the
03:33reasons why housing prices go up. But also governments try things like rent controls and all kinds of
03:39other stimulating, demand-stimulating measures that also drive up prices. Because what happens if you can
03:46get more money from the bank? That is that the sellers of houses will start increasing their prices.
03:51And this is not this is not financial speculators. These are citizens who have paid their entire lives to buy
03:57one or
03:58maybe a second house. And then you treat them as if they're they're criminals. And if they're not allowed
04:04to sell, they can sell speculators. I did not say that only public investment will solve the problem. But we
04:11have no
04:12experience of any country in the world that could have solved the housing crisis by only building more
04:18private housing. No, we need a mixed model and also tackling the short-term rentals, which was also in
04:24the insert. This is a key question, not only in the southern Europe, but also back home up north in
04:30Rovaniemi, Lapland. This is a place where students can afford to live in the city center anymore because
04:36it's packed of short-term rental homes. Well, homes are being built as we speak, not only at the places
04:43where
04:44we need the most. Why is that so? Well, the problem with Europe is that there's no one size fits
04:48all.
04:49That's why we cannot have one single policy on housing. And we don't want that because local local
04:56authorities like mayors and municipalities, but also regional authorities, they they need to be on the
05:02front line of solving the housing crisis in Europe. We can help them. We can help them with things like
05:08what I said, making sure that the the market for for building materials works, changing state aid rules,
05:15because indeed we cannot we need a mixed approach of public and private investment so that we can also invest
05:21in
05:22middle class in middle class affordable housing, because your introduction said it was mostly the lower salaries
05:29that had problems, lower income groups. But in fact, it has become a generalized middle income crisis in Europe.
05:35The problem is that we also have a lot of vacant homes around Europe, especially the ones that are
05:41used for speculative reasons. And this is where the governments can step in. The EU can actually
05:47be there to inform the governments to maybe introduce vacancy taxes, maybe introduce different taxes for
05:55speed up selling so that you should maybe maintain the home for two years or three years. And then after
06:02that,
06:02sell it, sell it. And then one problem is also that when we then state subsidize affordable housing,
06:09after 20, 30 years, these homes are actually sold into the market. And this is also a huge problem
06:15so that when state is subsidizing something, they should maintain affordable and they should maintain
06:21the state subsidized. The house increases has been a long time coming. We know this for years and only
06:28it has only gotten worse. Why hasn't been done anything? Well, because the challenge is also very big.
06:35Demographic change in Europe is is very large. The influx of also people from around the world is
06:42significant, especially in certain countries. But again, there is no single solution to the problem.
06:49What we need is that people are not criminalized for investing in a home. And often in many places,
06:56their homes are their pensions, because in countries like Finland and the Netherlands, pension pensions are
07:02organized via your income at your employer. But many people in other parts of Europe, actually,
07:08they buy a house in order to secure income after they retire, which which means that we need to
07:16respect and protect those properties as well, because this is very important for citizens around
07:22Europe. So my approach, my approach would be find a balanced approach, see where Europe can help get
07:28out of the way of construction, for example, because there there's a lot of rules around building a house
07:34and everything that has to do with the house is regulated by Europe. And in the Netherlands, for example,
07:40we are going slower than we could because of environmental often. And it's not because I'm against the
07:47environment. No, it's because I want to build houses. I guess there's more red tape than just
07:51absolutely. But to be honest, in the report that we were writing in the European Parliament on housing crisis,
07:57EPP was willing to cut birds and habitats directive, nature restoration legislation, energy efficiency
08:06legislation, very important tools to tackle the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis at the
08:12same time when we need to tackle the housing crisis. So this is really a problem that we are backing
08:17in
08:17these big, big ecological crisis at the same time, only by saying that we need more simplification and we need
08:24more cutting the red tape. This will not solve building faster and low quality homes will not solve the problems
08:31of
08:32climate change, altering our ways of living. Summer is becoming hotter and hotter, floods affecting our
08:40housing also. We need to tackle all the crisis at the same time. What about companies like Airbnb?
08:46How do they distort the market? And we've seen big cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, you know, restricting.
08:52Yes, yes. No, they can have a huge impact in the big tourist destinations. My colleague mentioned Lapland,
08:58but also Amsterdam or any go around any big city in the Mediterranean. The issue is that some colleagues
09:06of mine want to go for the headline and say Europe needs to solve the problem. But there's nothing
09:10mayors and local authorities cannot do at the moment to solve the problem. Amsterdam has the strictest rules
09:18on short term rentals in all of Europe. So be careful with asking for Europe to solve a problem which
09:25everyone actually already can do on their own. Maria? But this is something that we are now waiting
09:30eagerly from the commission that they would give a proposal on short term rentals again. There was one
09:36done last term, but it was not enough. And I'm afraid that the regular people are not put into the
09:42center
09:42of the legislation, that we're not looking at the affordability, but we're only looking at
09:47touristification. And, of course, the Greens will not ban the whole Airbnb and short term rentals in
09:54general. But we want to make the local authorities able to use all the tools in their hands. I bet
10:00there
10:01are still ways that EU can also instruct, let's say, on the times how long the places can be on
10:08Airbnb or other
10:09short term rentals schemes. We need open registries of all the actors in the in the sector. And we need
10:17to really think whether in very, very affected areas we should maybe think about the bans, because
10:25there are these from Lisbon to Robaniemi. But this should absolutely not be done from a European level.
10:30These are local and national decisions and you don't need Europe to solve a national problem. And that's what
10:35we're doing. But then also Europe should not say that you should not use all the tools that you have
10:39on
10:39your hands, like in some some cases. All right. Well, let me stop you here, as we're just getting warmed
10:46up.
10:50Now it's time for our viewers to get a real flavor of the European Parliament chamber, where members ask each
10:56other questions. And sometimes it can get heated. That means it's time for you to challenge each other directly, just
11:04as you
11:04do in the hemicycle behind us. So let's get started. And I start with Maria. All right.
11:13As most as was mentioned, climate crisis is one of the biggest crises we are facing as a humankind and
11:20good ways to cut emissions in housing are making renovations accessible for everybody all over Europe
11:28and boost energy efficiency. In the negotiations, as I already mentioned, anyhow, EPP wanted to
11:36dismantle quite a lot of these tools. And you were not willing to have, for example, dedicated funding for
11:44renovations in the EU level to really make housing affordable and sustainable at the same time. So why is this?
11:53Well, to be fair, at the moment from, for example, the recovery fund money and also from the current MFF,
12:01which has opened up, for example, the cohesion funds for for investments in housing, there is
12:08never been more European money going into housing investments than at the moment. And that is part that
12:14is because the EPP has been pushing this agenda for a long time. Secondly, whenever we invest,
12:20we don't do that with a blank check. Of course, there are standards. And I fully agree. And that's
12:25why we put that also in the reports that we need energy efficient housing. There's no point in giving
12:30someone a house which then costs a lot in income to heat, for example. So we need energy efficiency. In
12:39fact,
12:39in Europe, we have the highest building standards in the world. People forget that. But in all these rules,
12:44in all these rules that we have made and the standards we have built, there are also some
12:48that we don't need and that are excessive, for example, minimum heating temperatures for corridors
12:56where nobody comes in winter. Some things we should be able to look at pragmatically and not only
13:02dogmatically and say, oh, if you touch a nature relation related law, then you're against the
13:08environment or climate. That's not true. What we want is to fix some of the complexity that is in the
13:14legislation. And everyone tells us, everyone, the builders, the investors, everyone tells us,
13:19please make it easier to invest, make it easier to build. And then the houses will come.
13:25No one is against cutting the unnecessary red tape. But then when it really comes to just building
13:32faster, just building lower quality, it will not solve the biggest crisis we have on our hands.
13:38OK, short comment. But now your question to Maria. Well, that's my question would be about
13:43this approach. What we urgently need is a simplification package from the Commission about the rules and laws
13:50that have to do with building houses or the environment around the houses. So the soil, the air quality,
13:58the water quality, everything that has to do there. And even nature and nature 2000. Yes, the habitat
14:03directive. These are things where you can make targeted, targeted simplifications in order to solve
14:09a basic, basic problem that has, in fact, to do with the dignity of people. And that is building houses,
14:15making sure that everyone has a house and a roof over their head. And why can you not simply talk
14:22with
14:22us on that issue? If I'm pragmatically giving you the answer from this house, the reality here is that
14:28EPP quite often tends to choose the cooperation with the far right parties in this house, not the so-called
14:35von der Leyen majority with EPP, S&D, Renew and the Greens, which was very, very good on the previous
14:42mandate.
14:43And now suddenly EPP has this huge wave of simplification and everything just has to
14:48deal with cutting the red tape and so on. And this really has led to problems. If in this house,
14:56if commission gives something here and suddenly EPP here chooses the cooperation with far right,
15:03then we will see dismantling of all these really important legislation, not only fixes here and there,
15:10but it will dismantle the big picture of our nature protection climate actions here.
15:15So what we see is that my colleague moves away from solving the problem for people and starts
15:21talking about the political games here in the European Parliament. That is a big mistake, big mistake.
15:26Are you going away? What we should put in the center, what we should put in the center is trying
15:30to
15:30solve the problem. In the EPP group, many of my colleagues voted in favor of all the laws that you
15:36mentioned. They are not in favor of dismantling all of it. So stop making stop making that kind of
15:42narrative basically mainstream because it is not. You will find that we voted also in favor of the
15:48climate targets. We voted for a lot of the important things that you're referring to. So don't
15:53tell us that we want to dismantle it. What we want and also looking at the outside world. I mean,
15:58we are not living in a bubble. Our global competition is killing our economy. Yes, it is affecting how much
16:06money we have, for example, to invest in housing. We need to get our activator. This is a very disruptive
16:12period of history for us. Of course, we have climate change, but we're also fighting for economic survival in
16:19the world. Yes. And regarding this, if we want to see a housing crisis as a real European crisis, then
16:26everybody should be involved as actors. It should be the European Union level, the institutions, EIB. It should
16:32be the member states, national governments and the municipalities. And maybe we should talk about the deficit
16:38rules. And what if you said that housing should be dealt together in a similar way than defense is dealt
16:45in the
16:45European Union level? So would you then agree that we would exclude housing actions from the deficit
16:52rules as we've done for the defense questions? No, on those fiscal issues, I even think that on defense,
16:58it is not helpful because the markets, they don't care if Brussels give exceptions or they think, oh,
17:05no, you can make you can make more deficits. The markets look at your ability to pay back. But the
17:10member states
17:10are interested in that. And now many countries are not building enough affordable housing. Thank you
17:15both so far. I think we've heard your arguments very clear. Thank you very much. Now it's time to bring
17:22in a new voice into this debate. And here we'd like to bring in French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.
17:32In January, during a press conference on France's national plan to address the housing crisis, he said this,
17:39I have no doubt that we will be closely watched for our collective ability to succeed and deliver 2 million
17:46homes by 2030. Housing is one of the major emergencies in the country. Dirk, your comment, building 2 million
17:56homes. Is this the ultimate solution? It's a good election slogan. It's a good election. For the French elections.
18:03Yeah. But honestly, start with one and then do another one and then do another one. Yeah. Yeah.
18:10Putting putting putting long term targets. I mean, it's interesting for the communication,
18:14but nobody can live in a promise. Is that is that realistic? Well, actually, in the introduction,
18:20there was already a mention about some countries, Germany, for example, a big EU country that has no
18:25proper targets. This is a problem. If we don't see where we're heading, obviously, we're not doing enough
18:31efforts to reach. Yeah. Can the EU meet climate goals without worsening the housing crisis?
18:38Definitely. If we decide to do so, we have proper EU legislation on cutting emissions,
18:45the 2040 target by cutting 90 percent of our emissions. This is a very good example to show to
18:51the rest of the world that EU is still working, even though there's a lot of discussions that we should
18:57maybe back on our climate targets. But at the same time, taking all the tools that we have on our
19:02hands,
19:02as I mentioned, from the EU level to national governments to municipalities and taking the best
19:07practices into use, even though if it's not European Union or Parliament Commission that can solve the
19:13crisis by itself. Let's say there's a good practice on housing first, for example. This has been a very
19:19functional tool in cutting down the numbers of homelessness. Finland has been the country that
19:25actually was nearly reaching the goal of eradicating all homelessness in our country.
19:31The question is always who pays for upgrades, right? Does that push rents even higher?
19:34It's a good question. And I agree that the approach in Finland has been very interesting and successful.
19:40But Finland is also one of the richest countries in the world. We cannot replicate what Finland has done
19:46in all other member states. I want to talk about young people after the break. We'll be back with
19:51more. Don't go away.
20:01Welcome back to The Ring, Euronews' weekly debate show. I'm Stefan Grobe and I'm joined by Dirk Gotink from
20:08the European People's Party from the Netherlands and Maria O'Hisalo from the Greens from Finland.
20:14In this edition, our guests are debating Europe's housing crisis and I'd like to bring in some numbers
20:21from Eurostat. Roughly one-third, 30% of income is now spent on housing in Southern Europe. Around 80%
20:29of low-income households in Greece are overburdened by housing costs. Then between 65 and 70% of young
20:38adults in Italy still live with their parents. 26 years is the average age Europeans leave home,
20:46but 30 plus in Southern Europe. I promise we talk about young people. They are under pressure for
20:54various reasons here. What do you tell them when they say, I can't find an apartment, I have to stay
20:59with my parents, I want to move on. What do you tell them?
21:02I tell them that in the European Union level and also in the member states, the Greens are fighting
21:07in order to get the homes more affordable for everybody. If it's not the first-time buyers,
21:14not too many people can afford to buy their own homes before they are 30 or something more, but at
21:22least to be able to rent. And right now, the problems are in the speculation in the market where big
21:29companies are taking over. It's not often the people who might own even couple of or even more
21:34homes. That's not the problem. The small scale investors, but the big investors, the lack of
21:41willingness in the European Union level to tackle the short-term rentals crisis we have in many
21:46countries and the lack of willingness to really invest in public, really public affordable housing in
21:55all the member states and take the best practices into you. So we're working on this.
21:59What about this lack of willingness that she is? Well, I think the housing crisis is in the top three
22:06political topics in every member state in Europe. So there's not a single politician that is not aware
22:14that this is one of the main challenges of the future. And especially if we want to give a bit
22:20of
22:20hope and perspective to the young generation in the Netherlands, you need to have if you want to buy,
22:26you need to have 90,000 euros in cash minimum to be able to get on the buying market, which
22:34is crazy.
22:34Normally, a student probably has more debt coming out of university than they have cash on their bank
22:40account. So it's not realistic. And it's unfair because parents, rich parents of children that get on
22:47the market will get an advantage over the ones that that have less financial abilities.
22:53One problem is homelessness. And what we're seeing that homelessness is on the rise in Europe,
22:58even in some of the richest countries, and that the people who are affected by this,
23:04sometimes they have jobs, but they just cannot afford an apartment. How are we going to tackle this?
23:10It has a lot to do with accessibility of areas with more affordable housing, because one of the
23:17issues we see everywhere is that in the capital of your country, it's almost impossible to buy or rent
23:25anymore. So you see younger families, for example, going out into the periphery cities. And if these
23:32cities are not well connected with train or road connections, then obviously it is much more difficult.
23:38Is housing a social good or a market commodity?
23:42Both.
23:43It should be a human right.
23:45And while tackling homelessness, housing first principle is the key to solve it.
23:52So you first give the home to a person. That is where if you can also invest into services to
23:58this
23:58person who has probably lived in the streets for years, then this person can maintain the home and will
24:04not be kicked out to the streets again. And if we just wait for the person first to get rid
24:12of their
24:12substance abuse problems or get a job from the street, this will not happen. So give the home first
24:19and this will solve the whole problem.
24:21Okay, now we're going to move on. And it's time for our fifth and final round.
24:31We want to do something different here. I'm going to ask you a set of questions and you can only
24:36answer
24:36with a yes or no, if that's okay. Can the EU meaningfully act when housing policy is mostly national or
24:47local?
24:47Yes. Yes. Yes? Yes, definitely. Okay. Should Brussels take a stronger coordinating or funding role?
24:55Yes. Yes. Funding, yes. Coordinating, no. No. Should governments impose strict rent controls to limit price increase?
25:04Show me where it worked.
25:07We have different opinions about this in our political group here in the parliament. Personally, I would say no.
25:13No. No. Should foreign investors face limits or bans on buying residential property?
25:20Yes, definitely. Now we can talk about it. Okay. I take this as yes. Should zoning laws be relaxed to
25:29allow denser construction in urban areas? Yes. It depends on the set of other legislation also when it comes to
25:38nature climate and so on. So rather no. Rather no. Okay. Should vacant properties be taxed or expropriated to
25:50bring them onto the market? Yes.
25:55In highly populated urban areas, if you leave properties vacant for too long,
26:02I would say personally, yes, you need to be able to nudge the property back onto the market. So the
26:08authorities should ask what's going on here. And we already have that possibility in the Netherlands in
26:12some places. And I think you can think about that. But it's not Europe deciding that. Yeah. It's the national
26:19authority. Of course. Should the EU allow more public spending and debt to build social housing?
26:25Well, that is what's being done now in a limited way. So that's a yes. Yes. Yes. Should home ownership
26:34be actively promoted or should policy accept a long term shift towards renting? We need both.
26:43Home ownership is the basis for people's stability in life. And yes, it should be promoted. Good. All right.
26:51Last question. Have you agreed with anything you've heard from your opponent today?
26:58Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The housing first in Finland. It's a very successful approach. Okay. And I agree
27:05that a lot of the problems people are faced with cannot be solved if if someone is on the streets
27:11and
27:12they need simply a roof over their heads. Okay. I really like the fact that you want to see defense
27:17and housing crisis on the same level. I really want to see this switch in the narrative in the
27:22whole European Union level. And that final answer brings us to the end of this edition of The Ring.
27:28Thanks to our audience at home. If you like, you can continue the conversation by sending us
27:33your comments to the ring at Euronews.com. That's it for today. I'm Stefan Grobe. Take care and see you
27:41soon on Euronews.
27:44Euronews.
27:44Yeah.
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