{"id":452615,"date":"2026-05-07T17:30:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/05\/07\/lepore-bologna-al-comitato-delle-regioni-piu-fondi-per-la-crisi-abitativa-o-la-coesione-ue-si-rompe\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T17:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:43:15","slug":"lepore-bologna-to-the-committee-of-the-regions-more-funding-for-the-housing-crisis-or-eu-cohesion-will-break-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/05\/07\/lepore-bologna-to-the-committee-of-the-regions-more-funding-for-the-housing-crisis-or-eu-cohesion-will-break-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Lepore (Bologna) to the Committee of the Regions: &#8220;More funding for the housing crisis, or EU cohesion will break down&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels \u2013 &#8220;Cities have demonstrated greater efficiency than national governments in managing NRRP funds, responding swiftly to critical issues such as the water crisis, competitiveness, and housing.&#8221; The Mayor of Bologna,<strong> Matteo Lepore,<\/strong> on the sidelines of<strong> today\u2019s (7 May) plenary session of the Committee of the Regions<\/strong>, launched a direct appeal to the Vice-President of the European Commission, Raffaele Fitto: <strong>an urban chapter in the EU budget<\/strong>. \u201cIf there are no resources for cities, the mechanism of cohesion breaks down,\u201d warned the mayor, describing urban cohesion as a fundamental pillar of democracy and inclusion in Europe.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The mayor did not hold back on criticism of the Italian government\u2019s housing plan, describing it as currently &#8220;<strong>highly flawed<\/strong>&#8221; and lacking any real consultation with local authorities. Lepore expressed serious concern about funding: &#8220;There are not enough resources; they are simply reallocating funds that already belong to the cities. <strong>We need a housing plan for new resources<\/strong>.&#8221; His proposal is for a <strong>steering committee<\/strong> <strong>that includes ANCI (the National Association of Italian Municipalities), metropolitan cities, and small municipalities<\/strong> to jointly manage resources, preventing special commissioners from overriding local urban planning schemes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Lepore drew attention to the importance of <strong>a European social agenda<\/strong> that tackles the housing crisis &#8220;<strong>seriously<\/strong>.&#8221;<strong> While welcoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/05\/07\/the-committee-of-the-regions-sounds-the-alarm-over-the-centralisation-of-funds-in-the-next-eu-budget\/\">the Commission\u2019s Housing Plan<\/a><\/strong> as a starting point, the mayor highlighted the chronic lack of funding. Fierce urban competition, if not balanced by public investment, risks creating unfair competition (dumping<em>)<\/em> that drives middle-class families out of city centres. For the mayor, &#8220;<strong>if we truly want to move Europe forward, we need public resources dedicated precisely to this: rebalancing the market<\/strong>. Not to prop up a market that then crushes people in our communities.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels \u2013 &#8220;Cities have demonstrated greater efficiency than national governments in managing NRRP funds, responding swiftly to critical issues such as the water crisis, competitiveness, and housing.&#8221; The Mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, on the sidelines of today\u2019s (7 May) plenary session of the Committee of the Regions, launched a direct appeal to the Vice-President [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7901,"featured_media":452589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25774,29788],"tags":[34003,28090,26961,33394],"class_list":["post-452615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-briefs","category-diritti-en","tag-comitato","tag-home-at","tag-regions-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452616,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452615\/revisions\/452616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}