Von der Leyen to push even harder on housing in 2026

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Brussels’ agenda for the following 12 months will embrace a landmark initiative on short-term leases that's due within the spring. Vacationer flats — furnished lodging for transient stays — are a significant component in sky-high housing prices within the bloc’s main cities, and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has signaled a need to manage such properties.

“We can't enable that locals are pushed out of their neighbourhoods,” Jørgensen mentioned Tuesday, including that the Fee’s proposal “will strike the suitable stability with a agency however honest method.”

Towards the top of 2026 Brussels will publish its Building Providers Act, which goals to slash laws associated to the constructing sector and speed up the development of latest properties. The brand new legislation will observe up on the Fee’s upcoming Inexpensive Housing Plan, which is because of be launched in December and in keeping with Jørgensen will “goal the financialization of our housing inventory” and assist finish “egocentric hypothesis on a fundamental want like our properties.”

The EU’s fundamental establishments are scrambling to handle the housing disaster, which is fueling the expansion of far-right events all through the EU. Within the Netherlands, Geert Wilders and his far-right Occasion for Freedom gained the 2023 nationwide vote campaigning on a housing scarcity he mentioned was being exacerbated by migrants and asylum seekers. Likewise, Portugal’s Chega occasion surged to turn into the nation’s main opposition this 12 months by railing in opposition to the failure of multinational events to sort out hovering dwelling costs.

<img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/21/13198679-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-7368636" srcset="https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1024,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/21/13198679.jpg 1024w, https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=300,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/21/13198679.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"/> Vacationer flats are a significant component in sky-high housing prices within the bloc’s main cities, and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has signaled a need to manage such properties. | George Vitsaras/EPA

Von der Leyen signaled her private dedication to tackle the problem forward of her reelection as Fee president in 2024, and described the housing scarcity as a social disaster on this 12 months’s State of the European Union tackle. The European Parliament launched a particular committee on the disaster at first of this 12 months, and nationwide leaders are attributable to talk about the problem at this week’s European Council summit in Brussels.