NoYou don’t need to look at an infographic to realize that short-term rentals, an expensive home and a housing crisis have become a common language of European hardship. In Lisbon as in Milan, in Berlin as in Barcelona, the paradox is the same: cranes are building, prices are rising, but those who work can no longer afford a roof. Faced with this absurd scenario, HOUS, the European Parliament’s special commission seeking a solution to the housing crisis in the European Union, presented its final report, provoking a heated debate.
Short-term rentals: Brussels opens the home dossier
There is something paradoxical in the fact that the richest Europe ever is discussing, in 2025, of how to guarantee its citizens a roof to live under. Yet, that’s exactly what happened this week in Brussels, where the HOUS Special Commission, Special Committee on the Housing Crisis in the European Uniona temporary body of Parliament with the task of restoring housing to the status of social right, has reignited the debate on a crisis that now runs through every European capital like an invisible but profound crack.
The hearings that split the room
On November 4, the commission held two public hearings that were sure to leave their mark. The first, “Housing Challenges for Young Europeans”, he put data on the table that weigh like stones: over the last ten years the average cost of rent for students and young workers has increased by more than a third, while the average age at which people leave their parents’ home has exceeded thirty in several countries.
Sociologists and local administrators reported a Europe where the first step towards autonomy coincides with indebtednessand where housing has become the new frontier of inequality.
The housing crisis is no longer a peripheral issue in Europe (Getty Images)
When short-term rentals devour cities
A few hours later, in the same room, the hearing also took place “Tourism, Short-Term Rentals and Housing Affordability” from which it emerged that from Lisbon to Venice, from Barcelona to Prague, the story is similar: historic centers are emptying, rents are skyrocketing and cities are becoming temporary showcases.
But this time the point was not only that “every tourist apartment is one less home for the residents”, an obvious fact, but rather the political recognition that the phenomenon has a European dimension. The delegates from the main art cities asked for shared rules: «We don’t want to stop tourism – explained a representative from Lisbon – but prevent it from becoming the only possible form of life in our centres».
A boiling commission
The two hearings come as the draft HOUS final report is already the subject of a heated political tug-of-war. Over 1,600 amendments were tabled in just a few weeks from the different political parties: Socialists and Dems, for example, judge the text to be too weak on the control of speculation and ask for binding rules on short-term rentals and more funds for social housing.
The Popolari instead fear that excessive regulation could slow down private investments. The Greens and the Left propose a “European Charter of the right to live”, to establish the home as a common good. “The problem is not just building more, but building differently: accessibility, sustainability and social justice must go together,” declared Irene Tinagli, president of the commission.
What HOUS is really doing
The Commission, it should be noted, moves with a specific mandate from Brussels: study the European housing crisis and propose concrete solutions to be transformed into EU policies. HOUS was established at the beginning of 2025 with a duration of one year, it does not legislate directly, but prepares the ground for new legislative initiatives and for the coordinated use of European funds. There are three guidelines emerging in recent days:
- link part of EU funds to accessible and sustainable constructionincluding through public-private partnerships;
- create a European housing observatorycapable of monitoring real data on prices, rents and availability
- introduce common rules on tourist rentalsto rebalance the market and protect residents.
A Europe that returns home (maybe)
The HOUS Commission will not be able to build more accessible homes, but if it manages to transform the debate of these days into a concrete political agenda, it could be the first brick of a new social Europe. This week of hearings and parliamentary clashes, in fact, marks a turning point.
For the first time in years, the housing issue enters the heart of the European agenda with the same urgency with which we talked about energy or climate. And it is no coincidence: in many European capitals home has become what work was in the 1990sthe barometer of hardship, the measure of the distance between economic growth and real life. The hope is that it does not follow the same fate as energy and climate: that is, that of big declarations, small results and of a continent that continues to chase its own emergencies instead of anticipating them.