Open letter to the EU housing ministers from the urban social movements
Honourable Ministers,
Aware of the upcoming housing and urban development ministers’ informal meeting scheduled to take place in Marseille in November, we would like to propose this as an occasion for dialogue with civil society actors from urban social movements. With this letter, we address some of our concerns and propositions.
As international networks and social organizations (inhabitants’ associations, tenants’ unions, homeless and badly sheltered people’s committees, housing cooperatives and social centres, volunteers’ and migrants’ associations), committed to the defence and realisation of housing rights ‘without frontiers’ we are specifically engaged in drawing up proposals to cope with negative effects of the given neo-liberal path of the European Union on urban and housing issues. This focus correspondents with our deep concern regarding the structural reasons and the consequences of the current financial crisis, the far reaching consequences of climatic changes and energy insecurity, as well as the current EU-path in the field of territorial cohesion and governance.
We believe that the orientation of the EU on monetarism as well as on the deregulation of national markets, the privatisation and liberation of capital flows, the territorial competition and unbalanced relations with the “south”, the low taxes for high income, the deconstruction of the social security systems and the low wages have largely contributed to the multidimensional crisis to which Europe and the world is confronted with today:
- The HOUSING CRISIS in many regions, including those which had previously been successful economically as well as those which have suffered from mass privatisation, de-industrialisation and unbalanced patterns of the agglomeration of investments;
- The FINANCIAL CRISIS in which unregulated global speculation with real estate and housing has played a most important role and which – besides the effects on the general economy, on public wealth and employment - continues to generate consequences for financing housing and infrastructure, for the maintenance of urban structures and for affordable housing;
- The ENERGY SECURITY AND CLIMATIC CRISIS which has already resulted in a substantial increase in energy and heating costs, producing heavy financial burdens for the necessary housing modernisation and which, within the coming decades, will radically change the frame for territorial development;
- The DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE CRISIS, best illustrated by the NO from the citizens of France, the Netherlands and Ireland as regards the Lisbon treaty, a NO which reflects inhabitants’ experiences with an EU oriented at underminining democratic control by privatisation of public services, deregulation of national social standards and by implementing governance structures at all levels which are increasingly influenced by corporations, forcing the territories to compete for limited resources, most profitable for investors;
- all this has resulted in a COHESION CRISIS in all it's aspects: social, economical, ecological, political, territorial.
In order to respond to this complex crisis, we deeply believe the EU has to shift urgently from the given approach on mainly “negative” economical integration to an approach of completing the social and political union by fundamentally orientating all EU policies on the principles of individual and social human RIGHTS, of SOLIDARITY within Europe and beyond, of SUSTAINABILITY in a fundamental social and ecological meaning and of real DEMOCRACY including democratic control over frames and important sectors of the economy.
Further more, we believe that social housing policies as well as integrated territorial and urban policies which are based on a “bottom ups” approach can play an important role in implementing these principals and solving the multidimensional crisis.
While all this implies a fundamental rethinking of the Lisbon strategy and the Lisbon treaty, we believe that all sectors of politics and civil society will do their best if they start to develop strategies based on their field of competence.
In this regard, we believe that the Marseille meeting is of particular importance as it is an excellent opportunity for the ministers responsible for urban development and housing to discuss and promote concrete responses to the given multidimensional crisis according to their field of competence, which includes all territorial dimensions from the private home to the balance of regions.
After a halt in proceedings, discussion is again under way on the new European Constitution, which will inevitably involve discussion on competences and the allocation of structural funds. That is why it is absolutely essential that all the social, institutional and political bodies concerned should be involved.
We would also like to play a part by making sure the voice and the proposals of European city dwellers are heard at all levels. Actually, over the last few weeks, city dwellers have stepped up their mobilization for housing rights in many European cities.
Discussion on these issues at the European Social Forum in Malmoe (September 2008) involved social organizations, local authorities, and professional experts and resulted in a proposal for an European Forum for Housing and City Rights, offering a thematic space for discussion and initiatives to help build a future based on rights, the individual and the people.
On this basis, we propose an intervention by our delegation at your meeting in Marseille in which we would address each of you both individually and collectively, and offer our observations and propositions.
While a lot more could be said regarding the necessary responses to the financial and ecological crisis as well as the territorial cohesion, we, at this occasion want to focus on the possible role of a pro-active European frame for social housing policies which reaffirms state duties, re-strengthens national and territorial competencies and capacities and respects territorial diversity.
Honourable Ministers,
It is based on this that we would like to discuss with you on the challenges faced, as well as listen to your analysis and propositions.
We trust in your willingness to open this dialogue and await your individual and collective reply, on the basis of which we will decide on the stand we should take and the initiatives to undertake in individual countries and at a European level.
No-Vox, International Alliance of Inhabitants
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