The report released today by the team led by former Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, gathered information from Deutsche Bank and revealed that residents of Lisbon allocate 116% of their salary towards housing.
The situation identified by Deutsche Bank considers the prices for apartments in the centers of major European cities and average salaries.
In Barcelona and Madrid, the housing ratio is 74%.
The three cities exceed cities with higher living standards such as Vienna (37%), Luxembourg and Frankfurt (34%), or Helsinki (35%).
The European Council report, titled ‘A Roof, Many Realities: The Complex Housing Crisis in Europe’, highlights this issue as a “structural problem” within the European Union, as stated by the institution’s president, António Costa, after a meeting to discuss this issue and prepare for the leaders’ summit on Thursday.
While the housing crisis “has local characteristics and regional variations,” it is a widespread problem across the EU, with an average increase of 58.33% between 2015 and the first quarter of 2025.
Hungary leads this growth (237%), followed by Portugal and Lithuania (147%), according to data provided by the EU’s Statistics Office (Eurostat).
Today, António Costa warned that it is essential to resolve the EU-wide housing issue to prevent “a decrease in trust in democratic institutions” and the potential impact on competitiveness due to this affliction.
Despite the “challenging geopolitical landscape,” António Costa emphasized the importance of also addressing the daily concerns of EU citizens.
In a joint press conference with the presidents of the European Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, Belgium, António Costa added that leaving this problem unresolved will lead to “negative consequences,” impacting both competitiveness and trust in institutions.
Therefore, the issue of access to housing, due to the increase in renting or purchasing prices beyond families’ capacities, will be discussed for the first time at the European Council meeting on Thursday.
For “diverse causes,” the president of the European Council promised “diverse solutions.”
Although housing is a competence of each individual country within the European Union, António Costa considered it possible to resolve the problem with a EU-level approach, referring to the plan the European Commission is developing.
“Even though it is a matter of national jurisdiction, it is crucial that, as European leaders, we can discuss how we can complement efforts,” he argued.
When asked about the specific role the European Union can play as a community bloc, António Costa said the “first contribution will be to give more leeway for national authorities” to address this problem by looking at specific realities and utilizing, for instance, European funds.
If countries wish to invest in “short-term rentals, it is essential to provide them with the tools to facilitate this,” he stated.
