Between markets and social rights: confused EU housing policies

Housing crises are on the rise throughout Europe, in core metropolises and in Southern European cities like Lisbon, Barcelona and Athens alike. In most Member States, larger shares of the population – and particularly groups such young adults, migrants, the elderly, disabled persons – experience difficulties in getting access to the housing market; while historical problems persist, being they the low quality of housing estates in Central and Eastern European countries, or conflicts over the liberalisation of regulated rental market in Sweden. Heavily affected by the recent financial and economic crisis, housing is nowadays at the core of political conflict, in the new housing policies in Portugal, in the long-held fights against gentrification in Ireland or England, or in emerging resistance against Airbnb in Barcelona and Amsterdam.