Tinagli: EU working on housing crisis, but Salvini doesn’t want to meet us

Brussels – Months of work by the European Parliament’s special HOUS committee, dedicated to the housing emergency in Europe; the European Commission, which is preparing to publish a document on the issue next spring; and the Italian government — one of the few in the Union — that has failed to meet with the MEPs analyzing the issue, not even responding to their invitations, despite the problem being a dramatic one for many Europeans and Italians alike.

This morning, in Strasbourg, Irene Tinagli (PD), chair of HOUS, explained this to journalists on the sidelines of the European Parliament proceedings. “I have sought Minister Salvini several times in these months during the Commission’s work, but he has never responded to our requests to meet. The ministers of the other governments have sought me out,” Tinagli explains, “almost all of them.”

Even during the visit that will take a delegation to Italy, to Milan and Palermo, from 16 to 19 September, when there will be meetings with mayors, councillors, and the various social partners involved in the problem, “there will be no meeting with Minister Salvini. He did not respond to our invitation,” Tinagli adds. 

Irene Tinagli (PD/S&D), Chair of the Special Committee on the Housing Crisis in the EU [Photo: Emanuele Bonini for Eunews]

Yet, the Chair explains, the housing issue (including university student housing) is not just a matter of citizens’ rights, but “also a matter of competitiveness, because if workers can’t find housing where companies are located, it creates a problem for the economy.”

The emergency also concerns student housing. “Students need accommodation to be able to study, and thus train, and thus increase the country’s potential,” Tinagli emphasises. Instead, what happens in university cities with top-ranking faculties such as Milan, explains the MEP, “is that there is an increase in flows of foreign, well-off students who can afford to stay near our excellent universities, while many, too many Italians are forced to give up due to a question of cost.” In the Milan leg of the visit, the HOUS commission delegation will meet “the rectors and student associations, because the problem must be addressed, there are too many cities, not only in Italy, where student housing is not sufficient to meet the needs,” Tinagli announced. 

Meetings with local administrations are not limited to Italy. The commission has already visited Barcelona and Vienna and is about to go to Paris, “because the realities are very different,” she explains. “There are cities like Milan where the cost problem is due to the large amount of investment that the place attracts. Others, like Palermo, have the opposite problem. The issue is therefore a concern for all of Europe, not least because some problems are shared, such as that of short-term rentals, which take thousands of dwellings off the market. “There is an awareness that European action is necessary, both to give political momentum to a solution and to work on possible funding mechanisms that could be included in future EU programmes, including the Multiannual Financial Framework,” Tinagli concludes.

By February 2026, the HOUS Commission is expected to present its final report, so that it can also provide working material for the Task Force organised by the European Commission, which should present its proposals by the spring.