| Abstract [eng] |
The study aims to explore the state of the housing rights across the European Union (EU) countries and the instruments through which the EU supports housing as a social right. The sub-task, then, is to evaluate the state of the housing rights in selected EU countries, representing typical welfare state models and housing policy traditions: Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Lithuania, and Poland. The results provide more insight into the current state of housing rights in the European countries and inform how this state has changed in recent decades. The results show that, in general, housing policy decisions and outcomes have shifted towards greater convergence in the EU Member States over the past decades. However, the overall trajectory of changes is not very positive: government expenditure on housing-related policies is declining, and the sector’s performance in ensuring housing availability, affordability and adequacy is not improving, and in some cases is even deteriorating. The analysis of the selected EU countries shows that the EU has a very few instruments to support housing rights. The right to housing is the responsibility of national states and is usually guaranteed at local/municipal level. |
