Barcelona mayor calls on cities alliance to urge European Commission to tackle housing issues

Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni and Roma mayor Roberto Gualtieri consider the current housing issue in both cities a European Union problem.

Both leaders urged the European Commission to tackle housing issues and consider this problem as one of their top priorities during the new term.

During his visit to Rome, Collboni and Gualtieri agreed that European mayors must unite to face social, environmental, and financial challenges.

Barcelona's mayor highlighted the need for working classes to access affordable housing opportunities and considered it one of the most critical problems to solve across the European Union.

"Housing will be a democratic problem if we do not work to change the situation," he said.

Collboni and Gualtieri also discussed tourism management and its impact on locals, urban mobility, and environmental solutions.

Filling the Sink podcast

Finding affordable housing has become one of the biggest problems in major cities around the world, and Catalonia and Spain are, unfortunately no different. To combat the problem, the Spanish government introduced a reference index for rental prices in March 2024 to keep the prices from rising uncontrollably. 

Listen to episode 180 of our podcast, Filling the Sink, to learn more about it.