Rent prices in Barcelona are the second highest in Europe in relation to salaries.

BrusselsThe housing crisis is becoming more serious and is going to spreading throughout the European Union. In this context, the leaders of the member states of the community blog will speak for the first time in history at a European summit this Thursday and, on the eve of the meeting, the European Council has published a report that warns of the magnitude of the challenge. The community body not only highlights its social consequences, but also sees it as a burden on the economy and the competitiveness of the European club.

The study underlines the seriousness of Barcelona's housing crisisAlong with Madrid, residents of the Catalan capital must spend 74% of the city's average salary on rent for an apartment in the city center. Only Lisbon, which has been severely affected by the massive influx of expatriates, exceeds this figure: the average price of an apartment in the center of the Portuguese capital is 116% of the average salary of a Lisbon resident.

Barcelona's rate is much higher than that of European capitals that are also suffering from a severe housing crisis. The average price of apartments in the center of Rome, Paris, Oslo, and Berlin is 65%, 45%, 42%, and 40%, respectively, of the average salary of residents of these major European cities.

The European Council report warns that high rental and housing prices in general mean that, for example, young Europeans are unable to become independent when they would like. In this regard, it places Spain as the third European Union member state with the highest average age at which Europeans stop living with their parents: 30. Only other southern European countries have higher rates, such as Italy, which reaches 30.1 years, and Greece, which leads the table, reaching 30.7 years.

More pressure from mayors to regulate housing

The report from the European Council, led by Social Democrat António Costa, was published on the eve of a meeting in which the European socialist family intends to make housing one of the most important points of the meeting. In fact, it has become one of their main issues within the European institutions. Last week, the European Commissioner for Housing, Danish Socialist Dan Jørgensen, promised new regulations—particularly targeting Airbnb—and a coalition of mayors from major European cities, including those of Barcelona, ​​Paris, and Rome—all three also Socialists—sent a letter to EU leaders this Wednesday urging them to:

The coalition of mayors, which totals 17 and of different political stripes, is calling for concrete measures, such as a housing plan with €300 billion in funding to ease the crisis and, among others, the identification of stressed areas where more subsidies will be allocated and the real estate market will be further intervened.

Along the same lines, the report from the European Council, which represents the heads of state and government of the EU countries, avoids getting involved when it comes to advancing any potential initiatives, but does point to some possible solutions, such as subsidizing mortgages for the lowest incomes and tax breaks for the former.

However, due to pressure from the few remaining Social Democratic leaders in the EU, the draft conclusions of the European summit, which ARA has had access to and which are expected to be agreed upon this Thursday, only include two of 67 paragraphs on housing and do not mention any.