Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-10-Speech-4-010"
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we have come to the end of the journey of Parliament’s own-initiative report on housing and regional policy, for which I am the rapporteur. The report’s journey really started back with the work done by the Urban Housing Intergroup, chaired by my colleague Mr Beaupuy, of which I am the vice-chairman. This work has taken a significant step forward with the European Housing Charter, put forward and drafted by my fellow Member, Mr Hutchinson, and adopted by the intergroup.
Housing quality: the text adopted by the Committee on Regional Policy on 20 March talks about improving housing quality, defines quality standards and also the right to good quality housing. This is the subject of one of the principal amendments being voted on today.
Adequate resources: budget restrictions have reduced the level of public resources available for urban investment and, at the same time, administrative decentralisation and regionalisation in many countries have increased the powers of the cities.
It is thus necessary to give the local authorities adequate financial instruments and to ensure that the right to housing can be effectively and fully enjoyed and that appropriate housing policies and, more generally, urban development policies, can derive from it. So, Parliament is asking for a reinforcement of the right to housing aid and, in particular, calls for concessions for young people.
First of all I would like to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues, and particularly to the shadow rapporteurs, for their significant and important contributions. I am grateful to the coordinators and to the officials who have actively worked together to draft the report, providing important points and useful corrections to the document. It is only thanks to the understanding shown by all and a sound cooperative attitude that it has been possible to end up with a text, today, that I believe is balanced but at the same time innovative and on which I hope there will be a broad consensus.
The work done with the representatives of the European Commission, the German Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the European Investment Bank has really been very profitable. We established a very effective relationship with the sectoral associations and non-governmental organisations that approached my office.
Next, my sincere thanks go to the draftsmen of the opinions of the Committee of the Regions, Flo Clucas, and of the Economic and Social Committee, Angelo Grasso, for the great commitment they have shown and the excellent texts they have produced. I also thank those who have done significant work with me on the drafting of the report: Anu Ahopelto, the Group official, Agneszka Kunat, the official from the Committee on Regional Development, and my assistant, Valentino Izzo.
Before moving on to the text, I feel it is necessary to clarify the methods we used. The remit I had been set when I started work on this own-initiative report was to take the debate on housing policy up to the level of a European issue, while being aware of the existing problems. In fact the Treaty, as is well known, does not attribute any specific powers to the European Union in this area. Article 7 of the ERDF regulation for the 2007-2013 programming period does, however, envisage, in a limited number of cases and only in the new Member States, the possibility of using Community funds to support housing development projects. Similarly, it should also be said that a large number of European policies, such as energy/environment, transport, security, culture and social policies, have a significant, though indirect, effect on the quality of housing.
The issue of housing, then, cannot be considered as a separate issue. The approach that I wanted to take with the own-initiative report is therefore a comprehensive approach, considering housing choices within a wider sustainable urban development policy, with strong links to the sectoral and horizontal policies to which I just referred.
The report has therefore been structured around two main dimensions: the social dimension, relating to the interconnection between housing conditions, urban degeneration and social exclusion, and the environmental dimension, relating to issues ranging from energy waste to lack of building safety, from the quality of public areas to protection from hydro-geological and seismic risks. Alongside these two, there is a third dimension – although that might not be the best word to use – and that is, the need to coordinate at three levels: the horizontal level, through the various European sectoral policies; the vertical level, through the various levels of government, and also a link between the public and private entities operating in the housing sector.
I would like to mention a few fundamental issues, from among the most important ones.
The right to housing: should Parliament, as I hope, give the go-ahead to this own-initiative report, this would mean recognition for the first time of the right to decent affordable housing as a fundamental right."@en1
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