Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 29 February 2024 - Strasbourg

11.1. Data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services (A9-0270/2023 - Kim Van Sparrentak)

Mündliche Stimmerklärungen

  Clare Daly (The Left). – Mr President, as the housing crisis rages across Europe and homelessness rises to historic levels, the impact of short-term rentals in our European cities is part of the problem. Now, it is not the main one but, nonetheless, I did vote for this file because we know that the short-term rental market accounts for around a quarter of all tourist accommodation in the EU, but how many residential units are being lost to short-term lettings? We don’t know.

For far too long, the platforms have protected their data to hide the true nature of their impact on housing, to block the enforcement of regulation, and for too long to prevent cities from collecting taxes. But of course, we know their lobbying influence and how much sway they have.

So it is about time that we tackle that and I think that this file does go a little bit of the way to do that, which is why I supported it. More important than that, we need to resolve the housing crisis. We need to build public housing now.