Madrid wants to build more housing, while Barcelona is looking to cap rent and restrict accommodation for tourists.
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00:00Soaring real estate prices and rising inflation, these are two factors currently making it
00:15very difficult to access housing in Europe.
00:19Exacerbated by the proliferation of short-term rental services like Airbnb, how can EU cities
00:26respond to the crisis?
00:28The centre-right mayor of Madrid advocates for a supply shock by favouring the construction
00:33of new housing.
00:34In the end, housing is solved by expanding the offer and, therefore, by generating more
00:40land to be able to build from the generation of legal security and legal security also
00:45for the tenants and for the landlords, legal security to avoid legal occupation, the construction
00:50of social housing and a framework of normative simplification that is absolutely essential
00:55under these premises.
00:57In Catalonia, rentals have been regulated in dense housing areas since last year, but
01:03the socialist mayor of Barcelona wants to go further and extend the rent cap to short-term
01:08rentals.
01:09He also wrote a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, co-signed by an alliance
01:15of 10 European cities including Rome and Amsterdam, asking to be at the forefront of housing policy
01:21and directly manage the EU funds allocated.
01:26The problem that we have at the moment in many European cities is that there is a collision
01:32between the right to housing and the right to the economic or touristic use of these
01:38houses.
01:39Well, what I have explained here is that in Barcelona we have opted to defend the right
01:43to access to housing above the touristic use of the house, and from there some regulations
01:49have to come and the European Union has to respect those regulations.
01:55The mayor of Barcelona wants the European Commission to provide legal cover for rent
02:00regulation, after it appointed a commissioner for housing for the first time ever.
02:06He is to propose new regulations in the coming months, though housing is ultimately managed
02:12by each member state.