The Autumn package, kicking off the 2025 European Semester cycle, was released on November 26, 2024. The Alert Mechanism Report (pp.4-6), its associated Commission Staff Working Document (chapter on housing markets, pp. 41-46), and the Proposal for a Joint Employment Report (p. 19), highlight persistent affordability issues, declining housing investment, and overvalued markets in many countries. This calls for urgent action, to avoid further deterioration of housing affordability which hits vulnerable groups the hardest and strains economic growth.

The latest Joint Employment Report confirms what many already know: housing is increasingly unaffordable for many Europeans. Nearly half of EU households reported that housing costs were a ‘financial burden’ in 2023. For those at risk of poverty, the situation is even worse—33.5% spent more than 40% of their income on housing.

The burden is especially high for:

  • Working-age single households (24.4%).
  • Foreign EU nationals (twice as likely to face affordability issues as nationals).
  • Third-country nationals (2.5 times more likely to be overburdened).
  • Private rental market tenants (20.3%), compared to homeowners with mortgages (5.3%).

Meanwhile, social housing remains out of reach for many. Long waiting lists stretch beyond seven years in 25% of Dutch municipalities and even decades in Denmark. Belgium (257,271 households), Ireland (61,880 households), and Poland (136,156 households) report staggering numbers of people waiting for social housing, often young and non-EU migrants. Despite the growing need, the EU’s social housing stock has been declining since the 1990s and now makes up just 12% of total housing.

The reports also touched upon several obstacles limiting investment in social and affordable housing, including complex permitting procedures, restrictive land use policies, budget constraints, and a lack of skilled labor all slow down much-needed development. Access to financing also remains a challenge, despite the EU’s potential role in supporting housing investment.

The investment gap is significant: In 2018, a High-Level Task Force estimated that at least €1.5 trillion was needed for social infrastructure between 2018 and 2030, including €57 billion specifically for affordable and social housing. Without action, housing shortages will continue to deepen, making it harder for cities to attract workers and maintain economic competitiveness.

With this background in mind, the Proposal for a Joint Employment Report calls on Member States to:

“support access to quality and affordable housing, social housing or housing assistance, where appropriate; address homelessness as the most extreme form of poverty; promote the renovation of residential and social housing and integrated social services.”

Meanwhile, the Alert Mechanism Report explicitly highlights housing affordability, something absent from the 2022 Autumn Package:

“[…] [I]t can be expected that strong house price growth will resume, given the long-standing gap between buoyant housing demand and constrained supply. This could be exacerbated by the reduction in housing investment that has recently taken place in a context of historically high net migration to some Member States. Housing affordability, which has become increasingly strained in many countries, is likely to deteriorate further.

The message from the Autumn Package is clear: without strategic intervention, the housing crisis will only worsen. The upcoming Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) offer a crucial opportunity to address these challenges and should urge Member States to boost investment in public, cooperative, and social housing.