English
Housing is a precondition for achieving personal wellbeing, for social participation, for integrating into society and for contributing to a fair and inclusive society. It is a major element in our fight for a more social Europe: leaving no one behind also means leaving no one without a decent and affordable home! At the same time, it will be a key component of a truly European Green Deal through the upcoming Renovation Wave Strategy, which aims at scaling up the energy renovation of the building stock and at tackling energy poverty.
Local and regional politicians have experience in the provision of housing on a daily basis. They are also familiar with the difficulties coming from the lack of financing to actually build new dwellings or from conflicting EU legislations in policy areas linked to housing. These create obstacles for established schemes at local and regional level to support affordable and sustainable housing.
To tackle these challenges, progressive cities and regions have taken innovative actions and can inspire us with their initiatives. At the same time, through various initiatives, cities are partnering up. They are asking for Europe’s help in tackling the social, economic and sustainability aspects of the housing crisis, all of which have been exacerbated even more by the coronavirus pandemia.
As part of the European Week of Regions and Cities 2020, the PES Group workshop on A European Deal for Housing aims to identify the obstacles met by local and regional politicians to finance affordable and sustainable housing through European funds (the cohesion funds, the recovery plan or InvestEU in particular) to identify progressive solutions and best practices, and to list core policy demands to European policy-makers that could feed into the European Parliament's report “Access to decent and affordable housing for all”.
A strong future cohesion policy and a European Deal for Housing need to go hand in hand!
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Photo credits: Unsplash/Adrian Trinkaus
Panel moderated by Maria Freitas, Policy Advisor, Foundation for European Progressive Studies
Peter Florianschütz, Member of the Vienna City Council (Austria) and PES Group member
Alison Gilliland, Member of the Dublin City Council (Ireland) and PES Group member
Sandra Gómez, Vice-Mayor of Valencia (Spain) (TBC)
Virginio Merola, Mayor of Bologna (Italy) and PES Group member
Johanna Rolland, Mayor of Nantes (France) (TBC)
Panel moderated by Maria Freitas, Policy Advisor, Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS)
Asssoc. Prof. Dr. Milan Ftáčnik, co-author of the FEPS study on “Concrete actions for Social and Affordable Housing in the EU”
Agnes Jongerius, Member of the European Parliament, S&D Group coordinator on employment and social affairs (Netherlands)
Michaela Kauer, Coordinator of the EU Urban Agenda Housing Partnership and Head of Brussels Office of the City of Vienna (Austria)
Enrico Rossi, President of Tuscany region (Italy) and rapporteur of the European Committee of the Regions on the “Renovation Wave” (TBC)
Karin Zauner-Lohmeyer, affordable housing activist, “Housing for All”
Christophe Rouillon, President of the PES Group and Mayor of Coulaines (France)
The workshop will be live-streamed. The link will be available soon.
