On 3rd May, the European Commission published its Spring 2018 Economic Forecast, covering the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, including data for all 28 EU Member States. Such a set of documents is key in analysing the economic situation and developments that underpin economic policy-making by the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Parliament. These are important to FEANTSA, firstly as they include monitoring of housing prices, revealing a broad-based rise in house prices in the EU, and secondly because they offer an overview of economic growth and its social impact. The Economic forecast document reports an increase in house prices, as measured by House Price Index, by an average 3.9% in the euro area and 4.4% in the EU in 2017 –the highest rate since 2007.
FEANTSA believes that the European Commission’s European Economic Forecast 2018 lacks a coherent approach to the important risks associated with increasing house prices and that the report is downplaying the dramatic social impact that the housing crisis has – and could continue to have - on the future.
