Source: European Parliament
The Commission shares the concern of the Honourable Member about the impact of the housing crisis particularly affecting vulnerable people.
To help tackle it, the Commission will put forward a European Affordable Housing Plan (EAHP) to support national, regional and local authorities to address structural drivers of the housing crisis and to add value at the European level while respecting the subsidiarity and proportionality principles.
EU funds and programmes have already played an important role in implementing policies, reforms, and realising investments to ensure social, affordable and sustainable housing: i) The Recovery and Resilience Facility, the European Regional Development Fund , the European Social Fund+, the Cohesion Fund, the Just Transition Fund and the InvestEU programme are among the major EU instruments to support relevant projects and investments[1]. ii) The Commission published a toolkit on the use of EU funds for investments in social housing and associated services[2]. iii)
In April 2025, the Commission put forward a legislative proposal to enhance the mid-term review process of cohesion policy programmes and to allow Member States and regions to double the planned investments in affordable housing for their 2021-2027 programmes.
iv)The Commission is working with the European Investment Bank, as well as international financial institutions, national promotional banks and other stakeholders, to establish a pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing. v) The forthcoming Anti-Poverty Strategy will lay down a complementary approach on addressing social exclusion.
The Commission reaffirms that in the context of the EAHP, it will carefully consider the matters described by the Honourable Member.
- [1] Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRP) include measures worth at least an estimated EUR 21.3 billion that contribute to social housing and other social infrastructure for social inclusion purposes alone. In addition, the RRPs also cover measures promoting affordable housing. EUR 10.4 billion in total investment is planned, involving an EU budget contribution of EUR 7.5 billion from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Cohesion Fund (CF) and Just Transition Fund (JTF). In particular, the ERDF focuses on the provision and improvement of physical housing infrastructure, including through energy efficiency measures . The InvestEU programme earmarked EUR 2.8 billion for the Social Investments and skills window (including other priorities such as microfinance, social finance and social impact) and EUR 9.9 billion for the sustainable infrastructure window. The European Social Fund+ (ESF+) can support Member States in facilitating access to housing and promoting integrated services, in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights . An exact amount indicating the amount of the ESF+ funds allocated only to housing-related actions cannot be determined.
- [2] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/042f7559-fd3f-11ee-a251-01aa75ed71a1/language-en.