by Giles Merritt*
Housing, which is to say the lack of it, is foremost among the factors fuelling populism. Addressing acute housing shortages is crucial to stemming support for right-wing extremists.
It’s too easy to brand voters rallying to populist parties as ill-informed and misguided. The reality is that for many people Europe’s centrist politicians have failed to deliver on living standards and working conditions.
A determined assault on the housing crisis would be the quickest way to highlight populists’ lack of practical solutions to the challenges that dog many voters’ lives. Fixing housing shortages would generate sustainable growth, and it could also, by bringing affordable homes to young couples, address the population shrinkage that is Europe’s greatest long-term danger.
That around a third of all Europeans are hit by the housing crisis does much to explain rising political discontent. Housing Europe Observatory, a Brussels-based NGO, reckons that 82 million of the EU’s total of 220 million households are ‘overburdened’ by accommodation costs. Other analysts say 150 million of the EU’s half-billion citizens suffer from housing difficulties.
Much of this boils down to poor planning. From 1965 to 2015, Europe’s population grew by an astonishing 25%; yet the mid-1960s were when the post-war construction boom began to falter. Rising divorce rates fanned demand for more one-parent homes while greater longevity meant increasing numbers of older people were remaining in larger houses.
The excuse is sometimes made that Europe is ‘overcrowded’, so that building is constrained by a lack of land. It’s true that housing construction has not been in step with office and factory development, but that’s down to inadequate planning. Even in the relatively over-built UK, housing (including gardens!) takes up only 5% of the land.
The range of common-sense policies that could rapidly be applied would benefit from EU backing and branding. Showing voters that people right across Europe are being helped to confront very similar accommodation difficulties would send a political message that could counter euroscepticism.
Of all the available solutions, the quickest and easiest isn’t the obvious one of building more homes. It is instead to encourage the elderly to move to more appropriate premises, so that larger family homes can be converted into smaller units.
Selling a house and moving elsewhere is daunting for many over-60s who account for a quarter of Europe’s population, rising to a third in a decade or so. Environmental regulations and complex tax codes are a discouragement, and there’s the greater challenge of finding and moving into a new home. It’s scarcely surprising that most older people stay put.
What’s needed is a system in which teams of young go-getters are organised by local authorities and tasked with identifying, advising and facilitating the re-housing of older people. This should be dovetailed with a re-think of care for the fast-growing elderly population, including the splitting of expensive specialist geriatric services away from general healthcare.
‘Task Forces’ of younger people who would shoulder their seniors’ housing difficulties could make a very real impact. As problem solvers, they would need to be well paid and offered attractive enough working conditions to compete in labour markets that graduates often find inimical.
Housing drives at national and regional levels also need radical tax reforms. Governments have seen property taxes as easy sources of revenue, but by depressing home ownership have created greater political problems. Slicing through the layers of tax law that have built up over time – for instance, on the land beneath corporate buildings – could levy fresh funds to finance affordable housing.
Property markets differ enormously within the EU, with rentals more popular in some countries. Their shared problem is the resentment of voters overburdened by rising costs and, in the case of younger people, excluded from getting a foot on the property ladder for the foreseeable future.
Overcoming Europe’s housing crises is vital to economic revitalisation and improved productivity. Moving jobs to people and people to jobs is crucial to the development of neglected regions and cities ill-adapted to the digital revolution. But housing policies have had low priority throughout the EU.
Creating more homes appropriate to ageing populations is a local matter. That shouldn’t preclude an EU ‘blueprint’ setting out a housing strategy for Europe. It would be win-win for Brussels and the 27 capitals, and a rebuttal of populist dogma.
*Founder of Friends of Europe
**first published in friendsofeurope.org
By: N. Peter Kramer
