21 Amendments of Marc BOTENGA related to 2019/2187(INI)
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 2 a (new)
Citation 2 a (new)
- having regard to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular Articles 8 and 25 thereof,
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G c (new)
Recital G c (new)
Gc. whereas the European Commission study on legal gender recognition in the EU highlights discrimination against trans and gender non-conforming persons in access to the housing market, including losing homes due to the divorce requirement of some gender recognition processes in the EU, and that access to legal gender recognition increases trans person’s likelihood of finding housing in cases where their documents match their gender expression;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G d (new)
Recital G d (new)
Gd. whereas the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe recommended to Member States in CM/Rec(2010)5 that measures should be taken to ensure that access to adequate housing can be effectively and equally enjoyed by all persons, without discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity; whereas it recommended additionally that appropriate attention should be paid to the risks of homelessness experienced by LGBTI persons, including young persons and children who may be particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, including from their own families;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure access for all to decent housing, including clean and high- quality drinking water and adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene, and to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy, hence contributing to eradicating poverty in all its forms; reaffirms its call for EU- wide action for a winter heating disconnection moratorium; calls, too, for a European winter truce to be introduced; calls on the Member States to meet the standards laid down by the World Health Organization (WHO) for adequate housing temperature; demands that the revision of the air quality regulation be aligned with WHO standards;
Amendment 144 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the Commission to prioritise emissions reductions through housing renovation in the social housing sector and for worst performing buildings in the Renovation Wave, while tackling inadequate housing and housing accessibility and eliminating energy poverty in order to ensure a socially just transition to a climate-neutral economy that leaves no one behind; stresses, therefore, that tenants and owner-occupiers should be fully informed and involved in renovation projects and should not see overall costs increase because of them; calls, therefore, for the cost to the tenant not to exceed the value of the energy savings made by the tenant as a result of the renovations; stresses the need to protect tenants from eviction during housing renovations;
Amendment 175 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Calls for an EU-level goal of ending homelessness by 2030; calls on the Commission to take stronger action to support Member States in reducing and eradicating homelessness as a priority in the context of the action plan on the EPSR; calls on the Commission to propose an EU framework for national homelessness strategies; calls on the Member States to prioritise the provision of permanent housing to homeless people and those who have most difficulty finding accommodation; stresses the importance of reliable data collection on homelessness;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Points out that homelessness is also caused and perpetuated by the market and austerity policies pursued by the European Union; urges the European Union to adopt genuine social policies and ambitious employment measures to enable all citizens to live in dignity, without which homelessness can never be eradicated;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Calls on the Commission to specifically address LGBTI homelessness in its upcoming LGBTI Equality Strategy, particularly regarding youth, to create tools for enhanced data collection, to foster research across the EU and to facilitate the exchange of approaches to tackle the problem of LGBTI people experiencing homelessness between member states;
Amendment 196 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Points out that women are particularly exposed to the housing crisis; emphasises that women are more affected by poverty, due in part to the wage and pension gap between women and men, enforced part-time working and piecemeal working hours, and lack of recognition of female-dominated trades; calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop a gender approach in their housing policies, particularly by supporting women who face specific situations such as single parenthood, and by taking account of the specific issues faced by homeless women, such as separation from their children, stigmatisation, and lack of safe and secure spaces;
Amendment 261 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Welcomes the inclusion of housing affordability in the European Semester; urges the Commission to ensure that all country-specific recommendations contribute positively to the implementation of the principles of the EPSR; stresses the need to refine the House Price Index indicator and to set the reference threshold for the housing cost overburden rate at no higher than 25% of the disposable income of a household; considers that housing is affordable if the remaining funds are at least sufficient to cover other expenditure, such as food, health and education;
Amendment 280 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the Member States and regional and local authorities to put in place legal provisions to protect tenants and owner-occupiers from eviction and to ensure security of tenure by favouring long-term rental contracts as the default option, together with a rent transparency andobligation and binding rent control measures;
Amendment 286 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Points out that 25.1% of European private tenants spend over 40% of their income on rent; points out that rents are constantly increasing; considers that rents must be subject to controls and then reduced so that housing is truly affordable for all;
Amendment 287 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 b (new)
Paragraph 13 b (new)
13b. Calls for a ban on the eviction of tenants and owner-occupiers without rehousing; stresses that people who are evicted should be able to assert their rights in a court, particularly against banks where the repayment amount demanded by the bank is grossly unfair;
Amendment 288 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Invites the Member States to pursue housing policies that are based on the principle of neutrality between home ownership, private rented accommodation and rented social housing; callpoints out, too, that the rules onf the Commission to respect this principle in the European SemesterEuropean Semester have reduced investment in affordable housing; calls for the repeal of the European Semester so that the European Union and the Member States have the leeway needed to fund public and social investments, particularly in affordable housing, to the extent necessary;
Amendment 300 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Notes with concern the increased financialisation of the housing market, in particular in cities, whereby investors treat housing as a tradable asset rather than a human right; points out that the Covid-19 crisis has drawn attention to the fact that essential workers and public officials have been forced to move out of town centres because prices have increased as a result of the financialisation of the housing market; calls on the Commission to assess the contribution of EU policies and regulations to financialisation of the housing market and the ability of national and local authorities to ensure the right to housing and, where appropriate, to put forward legislative proposals to counter financialisation of the housing market by mid-2021; calls for the creation of a transparency register for property developers and private and corporate landlords to prevent speculation and because everyone has the right to know who is benefiting from their rent; calls on the Member States and local authorities to put in place taxation measures to counter speculative investment, and to develop urban and rural planning policies that favour affordable housing, social mix and social cohesion;
Amendment 317 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Points out that the expansive growth of short-term holiday rental is extracting housing from the market and driving up prices, leading to gentrification, and has a negative impact on liveability; calls on the Commission to set up a regulatory framework for short-term accommodation rental that gives wide discretion to national and local authorities to define proportionate rules for hospitality services; calls for short-term rentals to be restricted to owner-occupiers and to a limited period; urges the Commission to include in the Digital Services Act a proposal for mandatory information- sharing obligations for platforms in the short-term accommodation rental market, in line with data protection rules;
Amendment 320 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Points out that over 11 million homes in the European Union are empty; emphasises that those homes could accommodate everyone who is homeless and most of those suffering from severe housing deprivation in the European Union; points out that empty homes contribute to the decline in housing supply and therefore to the increase in prices and speculation; calls on the Member States to put in place binding legislation so that empty homes are put on the rental market in a condition that meets decent housing criteria;
Amendment 331 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to close the investment gap for affordable housing as a matter of priority; calls in this regard for a reform of the Stability and Growth Pact allowing for increased fiscal space for sustainable public investments, in particular in affordable housing; calls, in particular, for investments made in affordable housing to be exempt from the Maastricht criteria as affordable housing is never a debt but always an investment; calls, furthermore, for a harmonised accounting for amortisation methodology for affordable housing investments;
Amendment 341 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Urges the Commission to adapt the target group definition of social and publicly funded housing in the rules on services of general economic interest, so as to allow national, regional and local authorities to support housing for all groups whose needs for decent and affordable housing cannot be met within market conditions, while also ensuring that funding is not steered away from the most disadvantaged, in order to unblock investment and ensure affordable housing, create socially diverse neighbourhoods and enhance social cohesion; calls on the Commission to authorise State aid for affordable housing for any target group;
Amendment 342 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Points out that the Covid-19 crisis has accentuated the housing crisis for an ever increasing proportion of the population who are no longer able to afford private accommodation; urges the inclusion of this population in the target group for affordable housing; calls, too, for an eviction moratorium until 2021 due to the grave economic consequences of the pandemic and the difficulty faced by people in paying their mortgages or rent;
Amendment 355 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19a. Deplores the fact that local stakeholders and smaller organisations do not always know about public funding and that European procedures can seem remote or complex; proposes the creation of a single fund to achieve synergies by pooling existing donor funds, thereby allowing local stakeholders and smaller organisations to clearly identify those funds;