Regulation could be the fastest response for tenants facing their next rent payment, Italian MEP Irene Tinagli said. Measures to moderate rent increases and restrict short-term rentals in neighbourhoods under the greatest pressure could help in the short to medium term.
“In the long term we need structural measures that provide a greater supply of affordable homes,” she told the European Newsroom (enr) on Wednesday. That would however require substantial investment and long-term planning, she added.
Tinagli, who chairs the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Housing Crisis (HOUS), said residential property “has become an asset” and was increasingly attracting investors and real estate funds. These investors were buying entire buildings and evicting tenants or sharply raising rents, she said, describing a pattern seen in cities across the EU.
One such case was Maricarmen Abascal, whose eviction from her longtime Madrid home made her a symbol of Spain’s housing protests. She died in hospital at the age of 87 on October 7, two weeks after her eviction. She never returned home, despite an agreement with the apartment’s owner, Urbagestión, that would have allowed her to return at roughly her previous rent rate.
In the interview, conducted before news of Abascal’s death emerged, Tinagli described Abascal’s eviction as “a case that we are seeing in many other cities and countries across the European Union” and added: “It tells me that we need to do something.”
European tools, local action
While housing remains primarily a national and local responsibility, the EU could provide authorities with tools to act, alongside guidelines and parliamentary resolutions, Tinagli said.
She pointed to greater use of cohesion funds, “reprogramming them to address housing investments”, and more flexible state-aid rules to support social and affordable housing projects.
Work on an Affordable Housing Act, which the European Commission proposed last month, was intended to give authorities clearer criteria for restricting short-term rentals “where they are becoming increasingly invasive of the dynamics of the city,” the Italian politician said.
Such restrictions could range from limits on licences to outright bans, depending on local housing pressures. Reducing potential returns from holiday lets could curb investors’ interest in driving up property prices, she added.