	Habitat Net

Witten, Germany, Thu, Apr 05 2007

Include the Right to Housing into the EU territorial strategy and the Leipzig Charter !

HIC letter to German housing minister

Habitat International Coalition (HIC) called the German EU council presidency to include housing issues in the debates on the European territorial strategy; "We propose that the Leipzig Charter should reaffirm the human rights and, in this context, the right to housing", HIC wrote in a letter to the German minister Tiefensee.

"Dear Minister Tiefensee,

We took notice of your initiatives within the German EU council presidency, especially the initiatives on the territorial cohesion strategy and the Leipzig Charter on sustainable European cities. We would like to follow your call for comments on these initiatives.

What we are mainly missing in your agenda for the presidency is a reflection on the role of housing within territorial cohesion and sustainable urban development.

We welcome the integrated territorial approach of the territorial cohesion strategy. It is urgent to strengthen the role of the territories within European integration. However, we believe that any strategy which does not rely on the population of the territories and strengthen their human and civil rights, must fail to meet two other goals of European integration: social cohesion and democracy. In the papers about territorial cohesion there is no focus on the economical, social and cultural rights. There is no reflection on strengthening local democracy and participation. Most surprising of all, there is no content about the housing problems and urban exclusion in Europe. How can social and territorial cohesion be built without affordable and decent housing?

We welcome the Leipzig Charter with it’s strong statement for urban sustainability, the focus on integrated planning and policies in favor of disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, a statement on the housing question is missing. How can you improve the living situation in run down neighborhoods without dealing with the housing problems? Is integrated urban planning possible without dealing with housing? We believe that, without affordable, well-integrated and socially supported housing, cities cannot be sustainable.

Across Europe, and especially in the economically strongest metropolitan areas, we are faced with a huge housing crisis. Due to speculative bubbles and inadequate social housing and planning policies, rents and house prices in London, Paris or Barcelona are not affordable for large parts of the populations. Poor people, migrants and the young suffer most from the consequences. At least 3 million persons are homeless in Europe, and many more do not enjoy an adequate standard of housing. In prospering cities inhabitants of popular neighborhoods are confronted with demolitions, condo conversions, real estate violence and forced evictions. In a couple of countries even the legal standards are inadequate. However, in most regions the main reason for the crisis is the significant gap between housing needs and housing offers. A sustainable strategy of social inclusion and territorial integration must find solutions for these problems. We are disappointed that we cannot find proposals for these questions in your initiatives.

This exclusion of the housing problem from your agenda is even more astonishing because, during the past years and months, debate on housing rights and housing issues within the EU was alive.

- Last year, during the presidency of Finland, a Housing Rights in Europe conference was convened in Helsinki. As a result of that meeting Finland’s environmental minister stated: “The point of departure for the European homeless strategy must be housing as a universal, indivisible, human and fundamental right. This entails that the right to housing must be secured for everyone, irrespective of financial resources, property, sex, ethnicity, or national or social origin. Housing must also be appropriate, which means that it is conveniently priced, secure and appropriately located with regard to the place of work and basic services.” The conference proposed, for example, that “a versatile forum be established to operate in conjunction with the Council of Europe to promote the reinforcement of housing-related rights in Europe.”

During the German presidency we miss any follow up on that agenda. We know that there is no informal housing ministers meeting during your presidency. But can “housing as a universal, indivisible human and fundamental right” be ignored if you speak about sustainable urban development?

- The matter is not only institutional or ethical. Since last year huge movements in Spain are demanding decent housing and a stop to speculation. In France this winter a broad solidarity movement with the homeless forced the government to launch new legislation on the so called enforceable right to housing. Scotland already had implemented such legislation. In Germany organizations and movements are struggling against an extraordinary wave of privatisation of former social housing. Through the protests of people who claim their rights and through political reactions housing has become a real issues in the public sphere. We cannot understand how the presidency can ignore these democratic claims. Without solving these social problems the EU will hardly become more attractive for it’s inhabitants.

- A review of regulations on the EU structural funds has already led to the possibility of supporting improvements of large scale housing estates in the new eastern member countries of the EU. With this decision, the old EU taboo “housing is not an EU competency” has clearly been broken, and there is no reason to exclude all the other important aspects from the debates anymore.

- The European parliament during the last months was intensively concerned with the question of services in the general interest and how far social housing falls under this criteria. This problem is of the greatest importance for the maintenance of social housing services in several countries.

For all these reasons we kindly ask you to include housing issues in the debates on territorial strategy. We propose that the Leipzig Charter should reaffirm the human rights and, in this context, the right to housing.

In addition we propose that the EU Council Presidency:

- supports the right to housing within a reviewed EU constitution draft;

- promotes instruments to improve the legal enforceability of the Right to Housing in the EU member states;

- supports a broad definition of services in the general interest in order to allow an exclusion of public and social housing from the rules of competition,

- promotes a debate on harmonized European regulations on transnational real estate speculation;

- reviews directives regarding their consequences on housing and social inclusion.;

- supports solutions to allow the use of financial instruments of the EU to overcome the housing crisis;

- starts a process of defining European standards for human rights in the city.

We look forward to your consideration of these matters, and to further dialogue on housing as a basic human need and right in Europe."

Knut Unger, Habitat Netz

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Contents at this page do not necessarily represent the opinion of the editors. The indicated authors are responsible for the content of their articles. We are not responsible for the content of linked pages. (c) Knut Unger 2003

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