Europe wants 'an enormous wake-up name' on the housing disaster, EU commissioner says - Speaking Europe

[ad_1] One of the crucial urgent points within the EU is the housing disaster. Wages are usually not maintaining with the rising prices of lodging, and paying the hire is a problem for a lot of – by no means thoughts making an attempt to get on the property ladder. In the meantime, homelessness has received worse. Our visitor is the EU's first housing commissioner, though his temporary additionally covers power – a key situation because the bloc tries to grow to be extra impartial. Dan Jorgensen is a Danish Social Democrat, and in Denmark he was minister for local weather and power, and minister for growth cooperation and world local weather coverage, earlier than taking on the Vitality and Housing portfolio for the EU in 2024.

We begin with the tensions over Greenland, and we ask Jorgensen if the EU has stood up for its pursuits forcefully sufficient.

"I do assume that the European Union has been fairly robust in sending the message throughout the Atlantic to President Trump that all of us stand behind Greenland," Jorgensen replies. "The French president has additionally been very vocal, saying that the sovereignty of a nation must be revered, and we respect that so much."

"There is no such thing as a way forward for Greenland with out the Greenlandic folks," Jorgensen goes on, "and no future with out choices made by the Greenlandic authorities and the Danish authorities, since, after all, Greenland remains to be part of the Danish kingdom."

Turning to his portfolio, Jorgensen underlines that Europe wants "an enormous wake-up name" on the housing disaster. "If folks haven't got a house, if they can not afford probably the most fundamental want, which is a roof over their head, then there's a actual threat that they may flip towards democracy, and to protests," Jorgensen asserts. "What's our job as resolution makers if to not assist folks have an excellent life? And it's true, as you indicate, that previously the European Fee has not performed a giant function right here. We are going to play now a a lot greater function, and one of many issues that we have to do is change the foundations for when it's potential to make use of state help. We need to make it simpler for member states to make use of state help the place the market doesn't ship. So which means we will use state help to supply extra inexpensive housing in order that nurses, lecturers and cops may afford to stay the place they serve."

Jorgensen turns to the query of short-term leases, which he says is "an enormous problem in lots of cities in France and throughout the European Union. Quick-term leases have in some locations was cash factories for the people who personal the buildings, crowding out regular folks from their houses as a result of there's extra money to be made on short-term leases. We need to do one thing about that drawback," Jorgensen says, including: "You may put a most variety of nights that you're allowed to hire out your private home. You may differentiate between regular folks, so to talk, {and professional} homeowners that solely have these flats to hire them out as short-term leases."

Turning to power, the EU has dedicated itself to stopping imports of Russian liquefied pure fuel (LNG) by the tip of 2027. Is that sensible, provided that a number of European international locations imported important quantities of Russian LNG in 2025, notably France?

"I do assume it's sensible," Jorgensen solutions. "We've got managed to convey down our consumption fairly considerably already, from 45 p.c 4 years in the past to between 10 and 13 p.c right now, and now we have to take the ultimate steps. We are able to now not permit Putin to weaponise power towards us."

Will this fuel independence occur, although, provided that the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia oppose that general EU course?

"Properly, the choice has been made," Jorgensen factors out. "So it's now not as much as these two international locations. It will now be made into laws and legislation in all international locations. That's the approach our Union works. When a choice is made by certified majority, then it occurs in all member states. Additionally within the ones that don't assist it. Now, I'd have wished, after all, that we had unanimity behind these choices. We do not, and that is regrettable, nevertheless it would not change the underside line and the end result. We are going to cease importing Russian fuel in Europe," Jorgensen concludes.