European Week of Regions: Bratislava region is interested in the future EU housing policy --[Reported by Umva mag]

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Brussels/Bratislava – Pan-European meetings at the premises of the EU Committee of the Regions are always a good opportunity to lobby for the interests of metropolitan regions, such as Bratislava. This was stated on Thursday by the president of the Bratislava self-governing region (BSK), Juraj Droba, at the end of the 22nd European Week of Regions and Cities in Brussels. This is reported by the TASR correspondent.

On Monday (7.10.) evening, Droba opened a gala reception dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 as part of the week of regions. The host of the event was the president of the Committee of the Regions, Vasco Alves Cordeiro, and among the honorary guests of the gala reception was also the European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira.

Droba stated that the representatives of these countries at the event recalled not only what they have managed to achieve in 20 years, but also pointed out further challenges that the EU must address in the future.

“We talked a lot about a sustainable environment, transport, the environment, and the need for quality education. That is what we are most focused on in our self-governing region,” explained Droba. On Thursday, he was also at a political working meeting with representatives of Helsinki, Amsterdam, and Dublin.

“We talked about how sustainably a city and region can be managed. We are connected by the fact that we are metropolitan regions. All four cities have between half a million to a million inhabitants, and we are all from relatively medium-sized countries from five to 15 million inhabitants,” he said.

He clarified that Thursday’s discussions focused, for example, on social housing and the issue of EU competitiveness, where Droba expressed a critical view of labor codes in member countries, which, according to him, should be a bit “more relaxed.”

The future European Commission will come up with a novelty in that one of the commissioners will be entrusted with housing policy in the EU. When asked by TASR how he sees this through his participation in the Committee of the Regions, which is an advisory body of the European Commission, Droba highlighted the plan of the Bratislava mayor, who wants to help especially young families in the city find socially supported housing.

“We as a county are going in a very limited scope to look for housing that will be supported and primarily will be for teachers and doctors. It is such a European trend that I am a bit resisting. My healthy common sense tells me that I would rather give a person 700 euros in hand, let them decide what to do with it themselves, than to say you have a three-member family, so you must have a two-room apartment,” explained Droba’s stance.

The European Week of Regions and Cities is the largest annual event dedicated to EU regional policy and cohesion policy. (October 10)

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