BRUSSELS — The EU is in danger, and the threat posed by Russia isn’t the only thing jeopardizing its future.
That’s the message from Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni, who doesn’t mince his words in describing the bloc-wide housing crisis as a “social emergency” that poses an existential risk.
“In the same way that Europe has to beef up its defense capabilities to defend itself from the exterior threat we have on our Eastern borders, it has to address the internal threat posed by the housing crisis,” he said. “We’re running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem.”
Collboni said Barcelona, where the average home price shot up by nearly 70 percent over the past decade, is “ground zero” for a crisis generating discontent in the urban areas that house the majority of the bloc’s inhabitants. In places like the Netherlands, anti-democratic forces have already seized on popular anger over high rental and housing costs to score major wins in recent elections.
The mayor acknowledged that the European Commission’s decision to create the bloc’s first-ever housing commissioner, and the formation of a dedicated committee within the European Parliament, is a positive advance. But, he said, the EU needs to take more urgent, concrete steps to address the crisis.
“We need clear, European political strategies and funding mechanisms to provide affordable public housing in our cities. And mayors and local administrations — the people that know the neighborhoods, the needs of the people, the municipal companies that already build and manage social housing — need to be part of that conversation and help shape these policies,” he added.
Tackling tourist rentals
Since his election in 2023, Collboni has taken a series of audacious measures to make housing more affordable in Spain’s second-largest city. Last summer, the mayor made headlines when he announced Barcelona would move to abolish short-term tourist rentals within five years — a feat he aims to accomplish by not renewing the operating licenses for these properties when they expire in 2028.
The decision is being challenged by short-term rental providers and landlords, who claim it violates European law and will contribute to a boom in illegal tourists flats. The city’s conservative opposition parties also oppose measure, which they deride as being “Bolivarian.” But Collboni is confident his decision will be upheld and help stop the “expulsion” of the city’s inhabitants.
The phase-out is part of what the mayor describes as Barcelona’s attempt to address its sky-high housing costs with regulation. The other pillar of this strategy is the regulation of rental prices across the city, which he said qualified as a “stressed” market, since the average family is spending over 30 percent of its income on renting or buying a home.
“During the pandemic, everyone predicted that people would flee cities and never return, but just the opposite has happened,” he said. “We have to intervene in the market because it’s clear the market hasn’t been able to handle this situation on its own.”
Collboni noted the rent cap is a short-term measure designed to stop the crisis from growing even more dire, but that any long-term solution to Europe’s housing problems will require a dramatic increase in the number of affordable public homes. Before major construction projects are green-lit, however, he urged national, regional and local leaders to reexamine their approach to public housing, emphasizing that demand is no longer limited to the most vulnerable members of society.
“We need housing policies that are much broader, and that understand that this problem now affects urban working and middle class families,” he stressed, highlighting that 75 percent of Barcelona’s residents are potential beneficiaries of housing assistance.
Construction isn’t a silver bullet
Collboni also pointed out that in many cities —Barcelona among them — the construction of new homes isn’t a realistic solution.
“Barcelona is geographically fenced in by the sea, the mountains and neighboring municipalities,” he said. “We’re constructing three new neighborhoods that can potentially host up to 45,000 homes — half of which will be public — but after that, there’s nowhere else to build.”
That’s why the city’s municipal authorities are also working to expand public housing stock, and they’re doing so by exercising the city’s legal right of first refusal, which gives them first dibs on buildings being sold in areas where the market is stressed and there’s little room for new-builds. Over the past decade, together with Catalonia’s regional government, the city has acquired over 7,000 apartments that are now being let at affordable prices.
Casa Orsola, an iconic building in the central Eixample district, is the city’s latest conquest. Initially purchased by an investment firm that intended to evict long-time residents and turn their homes into tourist rentals, authorities intervened after major protests earlier this month. Teaming up with a social housing organization, the city purchased the property for 30 percent below market price.
“We’re changing the rules that have allowed us to end up in this situation, so that investment groups and others understand these operations will no longer be lucrative in Barcelona,” Collboni said. “We have plenty of other sectors one can invest in here; let them focus on those.”
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