Cecodhas Housing Europe

the new economic governance of the European union

2012-02-14T16:58:00.000+01:00

A list of indicators is the basis of the Commission's analysis of the health of national economy. This list include a housing price indicator and has finally been approved.

The Commission released its first report (link below) in which Sweden and Finland are hitting the annual housing price increase threshold.
But it does not mean that all other EU countries are performing well (as you might have notice in your country!) and indeed, the European Commission announced in its report in-depth analysis of 12 countries to be performed in the next months.

You can find our policy briefing explaining the rather complex process the EU institutions have put in place. We will issue updates in our next newsflash in March at the eve of the Executive Committee of the 14th of March.

In addition, please take note in your agenda that we are organising a conference on Thursday 26th of April to discuss it further with the European Commission, European Parliament representatives, researchers and housing actors.

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/economic_governance/documents/alert_mechanism_report_2012_en.pdf

Europe is the lifestyle superpower

2012-01-27T15:00:00.001+01:00

Europe the convergence machine….

In a report of The world Bank called “Goden Growth: restoring the lustre of the European economic model” published at the beginning of 2012; the authors concluded that the Europe has a unique growth model, which will survive to the crisis (this is a good news) but that is even a model to further reinforce as it delivers. The characteristics of our unique model are: strong Trade and Finance integration; an EU brand for enterprises and innovation recognised and value worldwide; and finally labor system to rigid and very big government expenditure. If the authors note that the model needs to be adapted mainly to demographic change, they also acknowledge that big public budgets are not necessarily a problem, but they need to be efficient (and this is where reforms are needed).

Why speaking about this report ?Because making public spending more efficient is at the core of affordable housing actors mission, and what we need to work in the future.
The report also reminds that Europe is a unique convergence machine and that the European Union’s project has been unbelievably successful in delivering increases of quality of life for 100 millions of Europeans.
This is why they propose to summarise the European growth model as a “lifestyle super power” that make the other part of the world dream of.
It is worth fighting for it to get stronger out of the crisis and fitted for the future !

the full report of the World Bank:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ECAEXT/0,,contentMDK:23069550~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258599,00.html

2012 big EU shift for social housing

2011-12-15T14:01:00.002+01:00

The governance of housing policies is as diverse as countries, regions, housing providers can be but whatever the systems of delivering affordable housing have been developed by history and local specificities, they are all impacted by European policies at all stage.

Let’s look at social housing sector as a good example of European integration, slow but going every year further. And interestingly, it might be creating opportunities and a much more positive framework than we may think. But we will see than some progress is still to be done in a European project at stake every day and in which co-production of services as of policies is not the dominant democratic culture of the time.

So, how are housing and European policies interacting at each level of governance: project, local authorities, regional authorities, Ministries. This is not an exhaustive list of links between both, but rather illustrative and emblematic policies development currently discussed intensively in Brussels.

Project of delivering social housing: EU state aids rules are applying to any public support received by a provider that might impact competition with other actors ; since 2005 Monti-Kroes Package, it has been agreed that social housing projects, because they are a SIEG, do not have to notify the State aids received. However, this ‘non-notification” is only possible if the target group of beneficiaries of social housing is well define to the “vulnerable”. Social housing systems have been designed decades ago in full complementarity with social welfare systems, meaning that some systems are so called “universal” and some “targeted”. Therefore , some social housing systems were not recognised as SIEG and it leaded to the Dutch case and the Swedish case, were government had to redefine their allocation ‘s criteria (or in the case of Sweden to stop all State aids to the public housing sector).

At city level: EU latest proposals on energy efficiency( EED: Energy efficiency directive), can have a major impact on local authorities budget spending, as the Commission included in its proposal to have an obligation to refurbish 3% of the public stock annually. Publicly owned housing would be included into the obligation which can represent massive needs of investment. This proposal is now in negotiation with the European Parliament and the Council and it is not clear what will be the end results of the process, but it will surely impact the sector.

At regional level however, the EU might constitute a very interesting framework to consider housing as part of the needed infrastructure to deliver territorial cohesion and green growth. In its proposals for the future cohesion policies 2014-2020, the Commission has, first of all, made investment in housing an eligible expenditure, which constitutes a complete paradigm shift (as before ERDF had only two category of non-eligible expenditures: nuclear and housing). Especially housing refurbishment is high on the agenda as 20% at least of the ERDF should be spent on renewable and energy efficiency; but not only, for the first time , housing is seen as a major social infrastructure and improving living conditions is a key target of the cohesion policies.

Finally, national housing policies. And this is a quite unexpected development which the crisis has led to. Definitely, housing market imbalances have been and still are at the heart of the financial and economic crisis. The debt crisis is one aspect of it but other macro-economic imbalances will need to be corrected if we want to find the path to sustainable growth. Housing has become unaffordable for to many European households, private debt level have reached an unbearable level, housing markets are speculative and do not answer the demand, not only at the very end of the market but for a vast majority of the needs. This is also the conclusion that the Commission came too and in its proposals for reinforced economic surveillance, an indicator out of ten will monitor housing prices, Member States will have to details their policies to ensure that the housing markets deliver, and the Commission will evaluate whether the proposed answers are adequate and sufficient. The good news is that clearly, the Commission have identified that diversifying housing supply and increasing it substantially is essential; together with a reform on tax incentives towards home-ownership in most of the country. So finally, more investment in social and affordable housing is recognised as needed, not only for people which we have been advocating for, but also for stable and economic growth.

More policies have a direct impact on housing policies, and they have been detailed in the Committee of the regions initiative report “towards a EU agenda for social housing” adopted in October. So we still have some political work to do !

What the heads of States have decided last week-end ?

2011-12-13T14:13:00.004+01:00

On Friday, Heads of States and governments of the Euro zone stated “ we are committed to working towards a common economic policy. A procedure will be established to ensure that all major economic policy reforms planned by euro area Member States will be discussed and coordinated at the level of the euro area, with a view to benchmarking best practices.”

But countries outside Euro zone will play the same “game” to ensure public debt and public deficit are under strict control by agreeing the so called “six pack”, number of 6 legislations establishing new procedure for controlling budget and economic policies : http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/898 (even if 23 Member State are currently in excessive deficit procedure !!!!). from the 13th of December, where these legislation will enter into force, the house price will be monitored closely. Out of 10 other economic indicators , year-on-year changes in house prices relative to a Eurostat consumption deflator should not exceed threshold of 6%.

You can find more details on how it will work in our attached briefing
>> Find our policy briefing here

Housing unaffordability should be the indicator of housing markets dysfunctioning

2011-12-06T17:00:00.003+01:00

Housing prices can not increase for ever, without damaging macro-economic stability. Since the housing prices bubbles have been at the heart of Ireland and Spain economic downturn , the European Commission will look at the evolution of housing prices in the Eurozone in the future, with the aim to prevent other bubbles to shake the already very weak economy.

but ,the questions are:

1. is it not already too late when housing price are unaffordable for most EU households ?

2. what indicators should we propose to better take that housing costs are unbearable and should decrease in the future ?

I leave the questions open to the comments !

2011-11-30T15:48:00.000+01:00

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