Committee on Transport and Tourism Ordinary meeting
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TRAN European Parliament
Follow its sittingsNina Nesterova
Dear all, thank you for invitation and like we are gathered today to discuss the short-term rentals through the prism of the impact on sustainability, right, short-term rentals and sustainable tourism. And we all know how complex is working on this subject because first of all, we have different short-term rentals providers. So some homeowners or renters who offer their primary residence while away, people who host tourists in their own home homes. Second, we have homeowners who rent their properties while otherwise being vacant, and operators who just commercially own or lease or manage multiple properties on a commercial basis. Second, we also know that demand for these properties goes far beyond tourism.
People are visiting families, right, they are used for as emergency accommodations, they are used for more longer stay for health or visiting students. So if we go now to the next slide of my presentation, we also see that converting residential homes into visitor lodging really set off variety of effects on the cities and livability of the cities. And understandably, our main impact that we are studying is really housing availability, right, that gets a lot of our attention. But beyond of this, we see all kinds of other negative and positive impacts.
For example, between the negative, it can go from crime to traffic, to congestion, to really displacement of people from different areas. But also on a positive side, we see revitalization of certain areas, creation of job opportunities. So if we go to the next slide, we really see some zooms specifically in three areas as examples, like transport, local services, and livability. And what we need to say that depending of where short-term rentals are located, they have different impacts. For example, in urbanized and tourist areas, they have more negative impacts, but if they are more spread to the neighborhoods of the cities, sometimes to rural areas, the effects can be very different.
So as an example of the transport, positively, they really can help to decentralize tourism mobility. So that's actually really good. But if we look at the urbanized centers, they really introduce traffic congestion, crowded public transport, and they really increase competition on the parking slots in the cities. Same go to the local services. So we really see that on the positive side, that guest spending can really redistribute some businesses out of the zones.
But at the same time, they also spread the problems with waste, with noise, with crimes outside of the concentrated areas. So finally on livability, we see that cross-cultural engagement can be seen as a positive part for the vitality of communities. But there's of course, if urbanized, the risk is that city centers becomes really like tourist consumption centers. And if we go to the next slide, we really see that so far when we are discussing transport, local services, and livability, we usually discussing economic and social part of sustainability. But of course, there's also environmental part of sustainability, which is much less researched and also put forward in this kind of discussions.
And if we are speaking about environmental sustainability of short-term rentals, it goes beyond carbon emissions, it also goes on the resource use and for example, like water and energy in general. And looking specifically into the emissions, it's like scope one, scope two, and scope three emission from short-term rentals, and we really do not have really good a clear picture on those. So scope one goes into emissions generated on site during the stay, and this include really fossil fuels from heating the apartments, hot water. Scope two goes to use of electricity, for example, for air conditioning or for any other services like nowadays even charging electric cars can go into this basket. And finally, the scope three emissions are really about the everything upstream and downstream the supply chain, going from production of welcome gifts to water and waste.
And most importantly, not to forget the transport to this accommodations. So worth of reminding that transport still represent the highest carbon footprint from any tourism trip. So and here comes the questions, and you can see it on the next slide of my presentation. So we know already that hotels and other tourism providers, they have this large sustainability framework that they have to follow up.
And this slide just sketch some of these regulations that hotels have to follow nowadays. To mention few, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, right, which really mandates detailed reporting for large hotel companies, or EU Taxonomy, which defines strict technical criteria for green building classifications. And in struck contrast, short-term rentals emissions remained a blind spot, and that's for different reasons, due to limited data, but also because we know that measuring this environmental impact from them would be extremely difficult due to the ownership structure, enforcement, and monitoring. And here we can go to the last slide of my intervention. I think my message today is really that while preparing or discussing any new legislative initiatives, we really must acknowledge that there is a wide range of short-term rental instruments already existing in Europe, from authorizations, licensing schemes, caps, or special restrictions.
However, none of these currently specify really strict or environmental performance standards or framework. That's why I think there also should be really a discussion while preparing new policy measures about building a comprehensive understanding of short-term rental environmental impacts across all the scopes, also going beyond the emissions to water consumption, waste generation. And finally, we need to find workable mechanism to hold short-term rentals to sustainability standards comparable to those in already existing in tourism supply chain. Thank you.
Marian Muro
Señoras y señores eurodiputados, buenas tardes. Muchas gracias por la oportunidad de poderme dirigir a todos ustedes. No voy a entrar en lo que ya todos conocemos, que es la crisis de vivienda que padece toda Europa, debido fundamentalmente a una causa estructural, que es la falta de oferta. Me voy a centrar en estos momentos en la reciente regulación publicada por la Comisión la semana pasada en el marco de la Ley de Vivienda Asequible. Este Parlamento Europeo, en su resolución sobre la crisis de vivienda, y la propia Comisión, en su propuesta de Ley de Vivienda Asequible, reconocen expresamente que las restricciones al alquiler turístico no pueden por sí solas abordar las causas estructurales de la escasez de vivienda.
La propiedad debe ser, la prioridad debe ser facilitar la construcción de nueva vivienda, movilizar vivienda vacía y reforzar la vivienda social. Este debe ser el foco de cualquier política de vivienda seria y en el que las autoridades europeas deben insistir con mayor firmeza. La exposición, en este contexto, permítanme decir que celebramos de alguna manera este reglamento en el marco de la Ley de Vivienda Asequible propuesto por la Comisión al introducir un marco más exigente para que las administraciones puedan intervenir sobre los alquileres de corta duración. Sin embargo, unos breves matices. La exposición de motivos de la propuesta de dicho reglamento parte de tres premisas muy claras.
Las medidas restrictivas de una actividad ya están limitadas por el derecho de la Unión Europea ya vigente, que incluye el Tratado, la Directiva de Servicios y la propia jurisprudencia. Se subraya también que no establece en el marco del derecho de la Unión Europea ningún nuevo derecho para que las autoridades competentes restrinjan. Y en tercer lugar, su objetivo es simplificar y aclarar el marco de la Unión Europea vigente aplicable, precisamente para adoptar seguridad jurídica ante las medidas que se plantean por los Estados miembros.
Por consiguiente, cualquier medida restrictiva debe estar justificada mediante datos que acrediten un efecto adverso real y demostrado sobre la disponibilidad o asequibilidad de la vivienda, debe ser proporcionada, debe valorar alternativas menos restrictivas y debe respetar la seguridad jurídica y las expectativas legítimas de quienes ya ejercen su actividad. Son principios que llevamos tiempo reclamando desde APARTUR, que representa los propietarios de los pisos turísticos de Barcelona, ciudad que como ustedes ya saben está muy adelantada en materia de restricciones. Precisamente porque estos principios de proporcionalidad, necesidad y evidencia han sido absolutamente ignorados por el Gobierno catalán y las autoridades de Barcelona en la regulación aprobada en el año 2023 que permitirá la eliminación absoluta de todos los pisos turísticos de Cataluña. Y ello, si me permiten, sin haberse realizado ni un estudio, ni análisis, ni evaluaciones sobre posibles medidas menos restrictivas, ni análisis que constituyan pruebas objetivas de la relación entre las viviendas turísticas y la asequibilidad de la vivienda, sin respeto alguno a la seguridad jurídica y a las expectativas legítimas. Estoy segura que dicha Comisión no compartiría en absoluto la regulación a la que hago en estos momentos referencia.
En Barcelona, ustedes saben, año 2014, una regulación sumamente estricta que prohíbe que se otorguen nuevas licencias turísticas. Desde el año 2014 Barcelona cuenta con 9.800 viviendas turísticas, año 2026 el mismo número de licencias. Los precios, por el contrario, se han incrementado un 70%. ¿Dónde está la relación de causalidad entre las viviendas turísticas y el incremento del precio de la vivienda? ¿Qué ha pasado?
Pues lo que ha pasado es que hay nuevos hogares, hay unas condiciones muy complicadas para poder acceder a suelo, hay una burocracia que es tremenda y otras modalidades como alquileres temporales y una ciudad que está llena en estos momentos de anuncios para alquilar oficinas en viviendas residenciales. Ahora bien, a pesar de esta evidencia fáctica a la que estoy haciendo referencia, el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona ha anunciado su intención de en el 2028, sin indemnización alguna, eliminar unas licencias que tenían un carácter indefinido y que fueron otorgadas por los propios ayuntamientos en función de su plan urbanístico. Y ello, como he dicho, sin evidencias ni análisis objetivos. Pero es curioso, solo hay un estudio, un estudio que el Ayuntamiento en el año 2025 encargó al Instituto de Economía de Barcelona sobre el impacto de las viviendas turísticas, que literalmente dice y advierte que el retorno de estas 9.700 licencias viviendas al mercado residencial podría ser parcial, por no decirse que no se producirá. Por tanto, ese principio de necesidad que invoca esta Comisión y que invoca el Parlamento ya de entrada no existe.
Esas viviendas no van a pasar con toda probabilidad al parque residencial. Si nos vamos de alguna manera ya a aspectos muy puntuales de este reglamento, el artículo 14 de la propuesta no puede blindar las restricciones ya existentes.
Todas las medidas deben revisarse con las mismas exigencias de necesidad y proporcionalidad y evidencia. Imagínense ustedes todos los países ahora estarán poniendo restricciones a toda velocidad pensando que las anteriores ya no van a tener que pasar por este control de la propia de las propias autoridades europeas. No pueden existir dos varas de medir diferentes. No sería aceptable. Segundo lugar, debe garantizarse un mecanismo de notificación a la Comisión de las nuevas medidas restrictivas que se adopten con un periodo de espera previo a su entrada en vigor.
Sin control ex ante la verificación de la proporcionalidad queda en manos de los tribunales. Y en tercer y último lugar, las licencias ya concedidas no se pueden cancelar sin garantías mínimas. Si una medida supone la terminación anticipada de autorizaciones indefinidas y válidas y conformes a derecho, debe establecerse un mecanismo obligatorio de compensación económica. La referencia a las expectativas legítimas en el artículo 10 es un paso positivo, pero insuficiente y sin garantías concretas. Gracias.
Damir Krešić
Okay, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, member of the Parliament, good afternoon. My presentation will be about short-term rentals and how it affects sustainability of European tourism. I'm sure that most of those things you have maybe already heard, some of them will be new to you, but since I have prepared many more slides than I can cover in this five or six minute session, I will skip through some of slides, but we will have additional Q&A session to answer any of your questions. So first of all, we have to agree that short-term rental is making a lot of waves in the EU countries, especially those countries that are tourism intensive. So we can say that short-term rentals is no longer marginal segment of European tourism.
It has become one of its most crucial segments and one of its most dynamic parts. And the purpose of this first slide is to provide some statistical data. You have already seen all of those data, but it's always useful to remember or to remind you that only three biggest short online travel agencies, Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb, recorded almost one billion nights in 2025. And this is rising, as epidemiologists would say, exponentially. And Croatia is in a peculiar position because in absolute numbers Croatia is ranked number eight, but in relative numbers Croatia stands out as a country with the highest number of short-term rental nights in all the EU countries.
So on average, Croatia has five times more tourism nights booked through OTAs compared to the European average. One of the major characteristics of short-term rentals is that they are concentrated. They are concentrated in space and they are concentrated in time. So spatial and temporal concentration practically means that we have, you know, double pressure on the price and this inevitably leads to the increase, first increase in the demand for short tourism demand for short-term rentals and after that finally after several steps it provides or it brings to the local housing inaffordability or in other words housing affordability erodes.
So this is something that we all have to take into consideration. But we have to be fair to tourism and we have to say that tourism is not the only cause of the rise of the real estate prices in EU. Tourism is a local amplifier, but is not exclusive cause of the rise of the real estate prices. We can see this is true from this statistics. For example, in Hungary, Hungary is an example of country which is tourism, which has very low tourism intensity, but still has recorded very high increase in tourism in real estate prices in 2025, 21.2%.
Then we have, for example, France and Italy, which are countries which have, for example, very high tourism intensity, but have recorded very low increase in real estate prices. And then finally, we have countries, for example, Croatia or Spain, which have both. They have at the same time increase in real estate prices and they also have very intensive tourism. So what we can learn or what we can take from this slide is that tourism is not always to blame. It can amplify the demand, it can increase the prices, but only when other macroeconomic preconditions are met.
When somebody asks you, is short-term rental good or bad? This very simple question, but there is no universal answer to this. It is very contextual, it depends on context. So for some destinations, it might be good and for other destination it might be bad. For example, destinations that are in early stages of tourism development, short-term rentals presents an opportunity for those kind of destinations.
And destination like Barcelona that we just heard, that are maturated, that have saturated tourism, that are, you know, very mature destination, it presents some kind of obstacles for them and presents, puts them under a lot of unwanted pressure. So what is the situation in Croatia with short-term rentals? Situation in Croatia is, I think, very nicely described in this online advertisement that I found on the web. It says eight good reasons to invest in short-term rentals in Croatia. So you have high returns, you have flexibility, you have everything blah blah blah.
And the thing is that each of those reasons to buy real estate in Croatia is correct. But what at the end, finally it produces and brings us to situation like this. We have a lot of apartment buildings with a lot of short-term rentals inside. And consequently we have situation, we have problems with overtourism. This is, for example, picture of the main street in Dubrovnik during peak tourism season, so probably taken June, July or August.
And this is the same, this is the same street somewhere maybe in January or in February. So this is not good situation for any destination. And overtourism in Croatia made it clear that we have to address this issue systematically. So not to take actions here and there, but to address it systematically. So how did Croatia address this?
We decided to measure and to manage. And those two sayings maybe are the best way to shortly describe in five or six minutes how did we address those problems that we encountered. First saying is attributed to Peter Drucker, who is supposed to be the godfather of modern organizational management. He said you cannot manage what you cannot measure. And the other is attributed to Edward Deming, the man who invented, let's say like this, business intelligence.
He said without data you're just another person with an opinion. So in Croatia we decided to measure. So what are we measuring and how do we measure it? So first of all, in order to measure we had to provide some kind of legislative framework to measure. And this was done by our new Tourism Act which was introduced in 2024.
And this Tourism Act made it obligatory for many destination to measure something. I'm now don't have a time to go into details, great details what Croatian destinations are measuring. But what we did is that we made obligatory for some destination to measure tourism development.
For example, most of the most of we are calculating some one indicator called tourism development index, which is supposed or which is composite indicator and we and this indicator is telling us what is the level of tourism development of destination. We are producing a regional tourism satellite account of sustainable tourism, meaning, for example, right now in Croatia, we know how many CO2 is emitted per one additional million of GDP of European of tourism. We know how many how much water is consumed, how much electricity consumed, how much how much waste is generated, for example, for one additional million euro of tourism GDP. Also, some of the most developed destination, they had to do or they still have to do carrying capacity assessment, because if we want to manage, if we want to measure, then we have to know what is the upper limit of some some interventions in our environment, in our in in our infrastructure that we can that we are ready to to to take. And finally, all of our destination had to do destination management management plan.
Important thing also to mention is that this not only effort from the sector of tourism, it was cross-sectoral, it also touched the sector like spatial and urban planning, building permits, housing, fiscal policy, etc. So what can EU learn from Croatia? First of all, or what kind of message would I like to send today? First, we have to measure. Then we have to acknowledge that we cannot use one-size-fits-all solutions.
We can we have to differentiate destinations. What is good for one destination is not necessarily good for other destination. We have to act locally. Only if we act locally can we make some change. And we have to keep it proportion.
We don't have we we are not allowed to overkill it. And to conclude, first of all, short-term rentals is structural, not marginal. Its effects are context-dependent, so not the same effect for every destination. Croatia offers a model through evidence-based tourism policy. And the last one, but I think the most important, is the role of the EU and the role of the national governments is to enable.
What to enable? To enable collecting data, to enable methodology harmonization, so it can be comparable, and to enable or to create legal certainty. And destination or regions, they have to manage, because management is only possible at the regional or local level. At least this is my experience. Thank you.
Speaker 6
Thank you very much, Mr. Kresic. Now I would like to give the floor to Mrs. Lucia Caudet, Deputy Head of Unit of the Tourism Task Force from the European Commission DG ENER, for two or three minutes for her presentation. Thank you very much, you have the floor, Madam.
Lucia Caudet
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to participate in this in this exchange and thank you to the panelists for setting out the the challenges and the issues so well. The Commission very much agrees that short-term rentals bring many, many benefits in terms of diversifying and increasing the offer of tourist accommodation, the economic activity that they can generate around their services and also representing an additional source of income for people who occasionally rent out their own home.
Speaker 11
What some call over-tourism, lack of level playing field with traditional tourism accommodation and so on. Which also shows that while short-term rentals have grown across the EU, some of these issues are also highly localized. And when it comes to housing affordability in particular, they can act as an aggravating factor, and nobody in the Commission states that they are the cause of the housing crisis. Now, as you have said, the Commission just presented a proposed regulation for an Affordable Housing Act, which focuses on the issue of housing affordability and availability. This is against the backdrop of the acute housing crisis affecting the European Union and which is already leading authorities across the EU to act also in the area of short-term rentals through a number of restrictions.
Now, these housing policy choices, they remain very much the competence of the Member States, but where they affect internal market freedoms of the freedom to provide services or establishment, they affect EU competence and existing EU legislation. With the Affordable Housing Act, the EU or the Commission does not propose to impose any new obligations. What we are doing is operationalizing what are already existing principles enshrined in the Treaty and the Services Directive and in court jurisprudence. The idea is not to top-down harmonize policy choices or indeed impose a one-size-fits-all approach, for example whether night caps or bans or what type of measure actually should work or not work in any circumstance. We think that that pertains to local authorities' decisions, but to harmonize general principles to ensure that such restrictions are justified and are proportionate.
So the Affordable Housing Act presents a common methodology to determine whether the area really is under housing stress. Secondly, before adopting a restriction on short-term rentals, the authority needs to demonstrate that the activity really is having a significant adverse effect. And that is where the link with the STR regulation which the panelists made is so important because we really need evidence-based policy based on real data. And finally, the actual measure also needs to be designed to be proportionate. For short-term rentals specifically, this means that the measure needs to be tailored and calibrated to the type of activity, excuse me, most likely to actually have an impact on the housing market because of the scale, frequency or commercial nature of the activity.
There are a number of other proportionality safeguards. These safeguards are there to preserve the internal market, but they're also there to preserve the many benefits of short-term rentals, including for tourism, to make sure that any restriction is as tailored as possible and subject to transparency and periodic review requirements. The Affordable Housing Act is designed to apply only for future measures, meaning that any current restriction still falls under the existing EU framework, and it only covers measures adopted for housing affordability and availability objectives. Any other measure adopted for other public interest objectives will continue to fall in the case of short-term rentals under the Services Directive. Now the proposal is now in the hands of this institution and of the Council of the EU, and we of course will fully participate in the discussions.
A closing point that we want to add is that restrictions can in some occasions be justified and necessary, but they should not be mistaken for structural housing or indeed long-term tourism strategies.
Lucia Caudet
In the case in the area of housing, the Affordable Housing Act is only one part of the bigger puzzle of all the actions that we are taking together with public authorities to increase supply, more innovative construction, faster permitting, more investment, etc. in housing. In the area of tourism, my colleague Elisabeth Kotthaus here from DG MOVE will be well placed to also speak about the upcoming tourism strategy, which aims to help manage the underlying geographic and seasonal concentration of tourism by supporting authorities in better managing tourism flows, diversifying them and spreading them to areas with untapped potential. I hope I kept more or less the timing. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you, thank you very much. Now we are moving to the questions and answers and we'll begin with the remarks from the Tourism Task Force Steering Group members for our colleagues who are who are with us today. We'll start with Nikolina Brnjac from EPP for two minutes, please.
Nikolina Brnjac
Thank you, Chair. Poštovane zastupnice i zastupnici, as I speak in Croatian, dame i gospodo, danas raspravljamo ovdje o jednoj od najvažnijih tema za budućnost europskih gradova i regija, o kratkoročnom najmu i razvoju održivog turizma. Dakle, na kratkoročni najam otpada gotovo trećina svih turističkih noćenja u Europskoj uniji. Hrvatska ima, kao što ste mogli čuti, dugu tradiciju kratkoročnog najma, a upravo pružanje usluga smještaja obiteljima osigurava prihod, podupire lokalno gospodarstvo i gostima približava život naših lokalnih zajednica. Pojavom digitalnih platformi omogućuje se značajan rast kratkoročnog najma i ne moram ni objašnjavati koliko upravo taj značajan rast utječe i stvara pritisak na destinaciju u zemlji od svega 4 milijuna stanovnika, a imamo otprilike oko 21 milijun turista.
Međutim, Hrvatska je upravo zbog toga donijela Zakon o turizmu koji je uspostavio okvir koji povezuje planove upravljanja destinacijama sa pokazateljima održivosti, gdje mjerimo i ekonomsku i ekološku i socijalnu održivost, a isto tako i izračune prihvatnih kapaciteta. Jer temeljem upravo tih prihvatnih kapaciteta mi možemo točno vidjeti ovo što je kolegica iz Španjolske jasno rekla da fale podaci, to je ključno. Znači, moramo imati podatke temeljem kojih ćemo moći mjeriti izračune prihvatnih kapaciteta i vidjeti i količinu što se događa sa našom komunalnom infrastrukturom, prometnom infrastrukturom, potrošnjom struje, vode i brojnih brojnih drugih kriterija. I na osnovu svega toga općine i gradovi onda mogu donositi odluke o broju, vrsti, kategoriji i kapacitetima smještajnih objekata i mogu donijeti odluku o kratkoročnom najmu za jedan određeni dio grada i znači ne za cjelokupni grad, uključujući da imamo neki veliki slučaj gdje se točno putem podataka će pokazati ukoliko imamo velikih problema ili nemamo ili ako imamo za jedan sami određeni dio gradova. Znači, ono što je ključno u ovoj priči je da je europska inicijativa prilika da bolje povežemo i turističku i stambenu i prostornu politiku.
I naš zajednički cilj treba biti da europske destinacije ostanu mjesta u kojima se može dobro živjeti, a koje možemo lijepo posjetiti. Ono je činjenica da je Affordable Housing Act prijedlog od Europske komisije smatram da neće riješiti problem priuštivog stanovanja jer nama nedostaje 10 milijuna stanova. I zaključno bih postavila pitanje gospodinu Krešiću, kako učinkovito upravljanje destinacijom doprinosi usmjeravanju razvoja kratkoročnog najma i koji su to podaci koji se mogu koristiti? Hvala.
Daniel Attard
Ħa nkompli bit-tradizzjoni nitkellem bil-Malti. Huwa tajjeb li qed niddiskutu dan is-suġġett hawnhekk għaliex hija sfida Ewropea li tirrikjedi soluzzjoni Ewropea. M'iniex ħa nidħol fil-mertu ta' x'inhuma r-realtajiet f'pajjiżi differenti għax kullħadd għandu raġun prattikament min qed jitkellem fuq pajjiżu, kullħadd se jkollu biċċa raġun taqbel jew ma taqbilx għaliex ir-realtajiet huma differenti u għalhekk irridu niffukaw fuq l-isfidi komuni fuq livell Ewropew għax inkella nkunu qed naħlu l-ħin ta' xulxin. Hawn nistgħu niġu hawnhekk nitkellmu fuq x'qed jiġri l-Belt Valletta, x'qed jiġri Brussell, x'qed jiġri Vjenna, noqogħdu nsemmu lil xulxin u x'nagħmlu mbagħad? X'ikun l-eżitu tad-diskussjoni?
Thank you very much, grazie.
Ma jkun assolutament xejn, inkunu smajna lil xulxin, inti għandek raġun, jien għandi raġun u kullħadd jibqa' fejn hu. U allura naħseb irridu niffukaw x'inhu l-problemi fuq livell Ewropew u kif nistgħu nindirizzawhom fuq livell Ewropew. Hemm nuqqas ta' kjarrezza pereżempju. Ix-short-term rentals huma servizz kummerċjali jew mhumiex servizz kummerċjali? F'pajjiżi, f'Malta hemm bħalissa każ il-qorti biex jiddetermina humiex servizz kummerċjali jew le għaliex jekk jiġi ddeterminat li huma servizz kummerċjali u naħseb li dik fuq livell Ewropew nistgħu nagħtu direzzjoni, tagħmel differenza kbira għaliex għandek ħafna akkomodazzjonijiet għal skopijiet turistiċi li huma f'binjiet residenzjali u l-mument li tingħata definizzjoni ċara li l-kirjiet għal skopijiet turistiċi huma servizz kummerċjali, dik tista' tbiddel il-logħba kollha.
Jiġifieri hemm bżonn li fuq livell Ewropew nagħtu kjarrezza legali u għalhekk fir-rapport tiegħi li wara kollox ma baqax tiegħi imma sar rapport tal-Parlament Ewropew kollu kemm hu u l-Parlament ivvota fuqu, qed insejħu għal definizzjoni fuq livell Ewropew ta' dawk li huma commercial operators u dawk li huma non-commercial operators. Għalfejn? U m'għandix għalfejn tawwal wisq għaliex issa nippreferi nisma' lill-esperti. Għaliex il-problema m'nemminx li hija dik il-familja li investiet fit-tieni proprjetà tagħha biex ikollha dħul addizzjonali, anzi dawk irridu nappoġġjawhom, aħna rridu l-familji jimxu 'l quddiem, dik hija l-mobilità soċjali, irridu li kullħadd jimxi 'l quddiem u jkollu dħul aħjar biex il-familja tiegħu tgħix aħjar. Il-problema kif narawha aħna hija li għandek kumpaniji kbar multinazzjonali li qed jiżnaturaw, denaturalisation, ta' blokok sħaħ ta' appartamenti f'żoni residenzjali li joperaw daqs li kieku kienu lukandi però fl-istess ħin mhumiex suġġetti għar-regolamenti li japplikaw għal-lukandi u allura m'għandekx level playing field u għandek kompetizzjoni inġusta.
U mill-ġdid hemmhekk naħsbu li fuq livell Ewropew nistgħu nindirizzawha billi noħolqu din id-definizzjoni ċara ta' x'inhuma commercial operators u non-commercial operators. Naturalment imbagħad hemm sfidi oħrajn li kollha nistgħu nindirizzawhom billi niġbru aktar data dwar dawk għandu jkun hemm qbil u kunsens totali. Ir-rwol tal-Unjoni Ewropea żgur jista' jkun li tkun ċentru ta' data fejn jidħol it-turiżmu. Il-problema mhijiex it-turiżmu żżejjed, l-overtourism, il-problema hija l-konċentrazzjoni. Għandna konċentrazzjoni fir-reġjuni tagħna, araw biss id-data li għandna available.
L-average ta' tourist nights huwa madwar sebat elef u ħames mija għal kull elf inhabitant fuq livell Ewropew però mbagħad għandek seba' reġjuni fejn l-average jitla' iktar minn ħamsin elf lejl għal kull elf inhabitant u f'ċerti postijiet iktar minn hekk anke d-doppju ta' hekk. Jiġifieri l-problema hija ta' staġjonalità u ta' reġjonalità. Dawn irridu nindirizzawhom u biex nindirizzawhom irridu nħarsu lejn aspetti oħra li mhumiex il-vacuum tax-short-term rentals, il-konnettività. Il-problema mhijiex li l-Ewropa hija mimlija, l-Ewropa mhijiex mimlija, l-Ewropa mhijiex mimlija. Anzi għandna ħafna reġjuni mejtin għat-turiżmu.
Jekk irridu nnaqqsu l-pressjoni minn ċerti reġjuni irridu ninvestu fil-konnettività u r-rapport tagħna jitkellem ukoll fuq hekk. Irridu nferrxu t-turiżmu tagħna. L-Ewropej iridu jivvjaġġaw u rridu jesploraw postijiet ġodda. Inutli noqogħdu nitkellmu biss fuq problema waħda daqs li kieku qiegħda f'vacuum, irridu nħarsu lejn l-istampa kollha u l-mument li ninvestu f'aktar konnettività biex nilħqu postijiet li mhumiex sfruttati u għandhom potenzjal kbir ħa nkunu awtomatikament qed innaqqsu l-pressjoni minn żoni li iva għandhom konċentrazzjoni kbira u għandhom problema kbira. Grazzi.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mr. Attard. I don't see any other members of the steering group, so we continue. I will try to keep the order from the political group. Oh, okay. Mr. Danielsson, you have the floor and then I will follow the order.
I'll try to be precise.
Johan Danielsson
Thank you, Chair. Also thank you to the expert. First, perhaps a general issue. I'm not sure who is best suitable to answer, perhaps the professor, even the Commission or the colleague from Croatia. But the Affordable Housing Act is clearly allowing competent authorities in areas under housing stress to introduce restriction.
One of these restrictions that could be introduced is the number of nights a property can be rented. And of course, this raises the question from the perspective of tourism platforms, what technical infrastructure would be required to implement such a restriction effectively when a property can exist at the same time on different platforms. So is the existing short-term rental regulation providing sufficient infrastructure for this or would additional initiatives on the European level when it comes to interoperability, data sharing, real-time verification be necessary if a Member State, a region, a local authority should be able to introduce this kind of restriction? Then perhaps a question to the director from Croatia. You said that we should act locally, that the EU and Member States should enable local authorities and regions.
I think this makes very much sense. It's also what the Commission says that they have intended to do with the proposal. So from your perspective, is the proposal from the Commission sufficient enough? Is it what you need to enable you in Croatia and local and regions in Croatia to take necessary actions? Thank you.
Borja Giménez Larraz
Sí, muchas gracias, presidenta. Bueno, yo simplemente recordar una vez más que creo que nos enfrentamos a una crisis de carácter estructural y que, por tanto, las respuestas a la misma tendrían que tener un carácter estructural. Hablamos de diez millones de viviendas serían las necesarias construir para cubrir la actual demanda y vemos cómo actualmente siguen disminuyendo el número de licencias de construcción. Para eso nosotros planteábamos un plan muy concreto con algunas medidas como simplificar la regulación, reducir la burocracia, impulsar la innovación, atraer inversión público-privada. Y la realidad es que lo primero que nos hemos encontrado es esta ley de vivienda asequible que aborda dos cuestiones muy específicas de ese rompecabezas que decía la Comisión Europea, pero que se han convertido en los chivos expiatorios.
Por una parte es el tema de los alojamientos turísticos y por otra parte, pues también esta restricción que se quiere establecer a la compra de segundas residencias que, por otra parte, nos gustaría apuntar que consideramos que es un absoluto desatino que atenta contra alguno de los principios fundamentales sobre los que se sostiene el proyecto europeo. En relación a la propuesta de alojamientos turísticos, no podemos olvidar que se trata de un sector que representa el diez por ciento del producto interior bruto. Por lo tanto, tenemos que ser muy cuidadosos con la regulación que planteemos.
En cualquier caso sí que es verdad que el planteamiento es razonable lo que se plantea. Y creemos que el marco bueno pues establece también un marco más exigente para el establecimiento de esas restricciones. En ese sentido a mí me gustaría preguntarle a la Comisión Europea porque hay comunidades autónomas, ciudades, el caso de Barcelona pues es muy claro en el que se quiere prohibir este tipo de alojamientos turísticos y me gustaría saber qué visión tienen sobre este planteamiento y si creen que tendría algún encaje no con la actual propuesta de la Comisión Europea que sí que es verdad que se establece una serie de salvaguardas y que desde mi punto de vista pues esto se trataría de una medida absolutamente desproporcionada. Gracias.
Leila Chaibi
Oui merci Madame la Présidente. Donc Leila Chaibi je suis coordinatrice en commission HOUSE et EMPL et par ailleurs membre d'IMCO. Merci pour l'organisation de cette réunion. Merci aux intervenants Madame Nestorova, Monsieur Krezic qui avaient démontré comment les locations de courte durée c'est un obstacle à l'accès au logement abordable. Et c'est d'ailleurs l'objet de la proposition de la Commission de l'Affordable Housing Act de permettre aux collectivités qui veulent permettre un accès au logement et bien de réguler sans avoir le sans se faire taper sur les doigts sans risque de se faire taper sur les doigts par la Commission européenne sous prétexte que ce serait contraire aux règles du marché.
C'est bien ça l'objectif. Et quand j'écoute Marianne Mourreau quand je vous écoute Madame je me pose une question. Je me dis comment ça se fait Madame vous êtes la représentante des propriétaires qui mettent leur logement en location de courte durée et vous êtes favorable à ce règlement. Mais alors je me dis mais tiens j'ai entendu la ville de Paris dès le départ manifester des craintes quand la publication du règlement a été faite. J'ai entendu la Fondation Abbé Pierre pour le logement en France aussi dire attention il y a peut-être un effet pervers.
Et quand je vous entends je me demande s'il n'y a pas un effet pervers là-dedans c'est que la Commission européenne a pour ambition avec ce règlement de permettre de réguler les locations de courte durée et donc d'en limiter le nombre de locations de courte durée sur le marché de faire en sorte qu'il y ait plus de locations de longue durée par différents leviers. Bon. Et bien est-ce que finalement le fait de mettre des critères sur les moments où on a le droit de réguler les locations de courte durée les moments où on est dans une zone considérée comme tendue une zone où il y a une crise de logement une zone où il y a trop de locations de courte durée et les moments où on ne l'est pas est-ce que le problème ce serait juste justement pas que dans les moments où on est considéré comme non ne faisant pas l'objet d'un trop de trop de locations de courte durée n'étant pas dans une zone de stress de logement et bien ça pourrait pas être contre-productif et là je m'adresse à la Commission européenne pouvez-vous nous garantir que quand ce règlement sera mis en place le fait d'avoir des critères trop restrictifs ça risque pas d'empêcher des villes comme Barcelone ou comme Paris ou d'autres de réguler parce que elles ne seraient pas concernées par les critères elles ne seraient pas considérées comme des zones faisant l'objet d'un stress de logement et de trop de locations de courte durée. Est-ce que vous pouvez nous donner les garanties sur ce point-là s'il vous plaît parce que l'intervention de Madame Mourreau malheureusement me fait peur sur ce sujet.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Oui merci Madame la Présidente. Merci beaucoup d'avoir organisé cette audition quelques jours après la présentation par la Commission européenne de ce règlement sur les locations de courte durée qui nous était en effet annoncé. Alors les locations de courte durée saisonnières c'est un petit peu plus d'1,2 % des logements en Europe. Donc il ne faut pas considérer qu'on résoudra le problème du logement dans nos différents États membres seulement à travers ce règlement. Ce règlement vous l'avez dit et moi je vous en remercie il est intéressant parce que les locations de courte durée touristiques ça peut être une opportunité ça peut être une menace.
Vous l'avez dit, il y a des effets positifs et des effets négatifs, et ça il ne faut pas l'oublier. Les maires, moi je suis une ancienne maire, présidente d'une agglomération en Bretagne, en France, le savent très bien. Ça peut être une opportunité, ça peut être une menace, et il faut vraiment mesurer les impacts. Et j'ai envie de dire que les maires sont les mieux placés pour savoir si c'est du positif ou si c'est du négatif. La proposition de la Commission, vous l'avez dit aussi et c'est important, concerne à la fois ceux qui en font une activité commerciale, mais ça concerne aussi des particuliers qui louent leur propre résidence principale, et ça concerne aussi des propriétaires qui louent des résidences secondaires.
Et je pense, et je m'adresse à la Commission, qu'il faudra vraiment qu'on fasse la différence entre ces trois types de location de courte durée. Et vous l'avez dit, il ne faudrait pas qu'il y ait un risque finalement d'atteinte au droit de propriété. Vous l'avez dit aussi et c'était important, on a besoin de statistiques. Mais les statistiques, on en a besoin, je dirais, au niveau de l'échelle de la commune, voire de l'intercommunalité. Et moi je me soucie de la définition que la Commission veut faire de la zone en tension.
En France, on a déjà cinq catégories pour définir le degré de tension du marché du logement. Donc attention à cette définition, est-ce qu'on arrivera à avoir une définition partagée, rien n'est moins sûr. Enfin, ce qui peut être intéressant parce que moi je suis membre de la commission logement, une commission spéciale, et j'observe aujourd'hui que l'on travaille dès à présent en commission IMCO et TRAN. Donc il va falloir évidemment qu'on examine ce texte qu'a proposé la Commission. On va certainement les uns et les autres proposer des amendements.
J'ai une question à la Commission : est-ce que les restrictions envisagées ne concerneront que la location, mais aussi, et ça peut se lire entre les lignes, l'acquisition et l'usage d'un logement ? Et encore une fois, il y a la question des résidences secondaires. Voilà, donc qui va être saisi au fond ? Ça, je pense que c'est important parce que je crois que là, pour le coup, on ne doit plus perdre de temps. Je vous en remercie.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Merci, Madame Le Helloco. And now I will give back the floor to our distinguished speakers, in reverse order this time. We will start with Mr. Krešić. You have 15 minutes all of you, but of course you can extend if you need some words.
Damir Krešić
Thank you. I'll try to be as short as possible, even though sometimes with me it's not that possible. First question was from Ms. Nikolina Brnjac. I'll talk in Croatian because it's much more convenient for me, because this requires some, you know, verbal acrobatics. Tako da ću nastaviti na hrvatskom.
Dakle, pitanje je bilo kako i na koji način zapravo reguliranje short-term rentalsa i odnos tog short-term rentalsa i destinacijskog menadžmenta. Ono što mi možemo kazati iz hrvatskog primjera je dakle da je upravo učinkovito upravljanje destinacijom, zapravo najvažniji segment učinkovitog upravljanja destinacijom je zapravo učinkovito upravljanje kratkoročnim najmom. Zašto? Zato što je kratkoročnim najmom jako teško efikasno i kvalitetno upravljati zato što je kratkoročni najam jako razmrvljen, usitnjen i za razliku recimo od hotelijera, gdje vi u Hrvatskoj kad skupite desetak, petnaest ljudi imate već 80 ili 90 % hotelskih kreveta. Znači razgovarate s ljudima koji mogu upravljati sa 80 % postelja u hotelijerstvu.
Kada govorimo o kratkoročnom najmu za 80 posto vam treba valjda 100.000 ljudi. Dakle vrlo je fragmentirano, vrlo je razmrvljeno i zbog toga je vrlo bitno da se to ne radi stihijski nego da se to radi sustavno, a sustavno se može raditi samo kada se kada postoji dakle zakonodavni okvir koji omogućuje da se nešto mjeri, da se donose nekakve odluke koje se temelje na podacima. Jer bez odluka koje se temelje na podacima vrlo vjerojatno ćemo prije ili kasnije završiti u nekakvoj stranputici ili u nekom krivom smjeru. Ono što se događa u skoro svim zemljama pa tako i u Hrvatskoj, mi se naravno borimo protiv toga ja bih rekao i uspješno je zapravo da se prostori koji dakle postoje ljudi koji su stručni za za prostorno planiranje, za razvoj prostora i ako su oni kazali, ako su oni rekli da na nekom prostoru treba biti namjena nekog prostora treba biti stanovanje onda taj prostor ne treba dozvoliti da se dakle pušta turizam. To se kod nas počelo događati i mi više nismo na neki način imali jasnu sliku koliko je stanova uopće na tržištu, koji su to stanovi kupljeni zbog ovog razloga ili zbog onog tako da dakle vrlo je bitno voditi o tom računa dakle da se da se vodi računa o namjeni prostora.
Isto tako mogu kazati da ovo nije samo problem turizma iako najviše pogađa turizam. Dakle kazali su da je ovo krosektor stvar koja je međuresorna da tako kažem. Dakle povezano je sa stambenom politikom, sa prostornim planiranjem, sa urbanizmom, sa poreznom politikom, sa komunalnom infrastrukturom i sad samo još ja sad ovako tu skačem od jedne do druge teme pokušavajući odgovoriti dakle istovremeno na više stvari. Ovdje smo više puta čuli kako je potrebno dakle na nekakvoj nadnacionalnoj i nacionalnoj razini stvarati uvjete, ali zapravo treba djelovati treba djelovati lokalno. Kad kažemo lokalno onda ljudi najčešće misle da da je to jedinica lokalne samouprave dakle grad ili općina, ali često puta niti to nije dovoljno lokalno.
Ponekad je potrebno ići na na dijelove grada, ponekad je potrebno ići na na ulice ili na kvartove jer vi imate neke velike gradove ili recimo uzmimo hrvatski primjer grada Splita koji ima određenih problema sa kratkoročnim najmom gdje na primjer ili Dubrovnik ili bilo koje popularne turističke destinacije u Hrvatskoj gdje zapravo cijeli grad nije homogen. On je heterogen. U nekim dijelovima grada imate prekomjerni turizam dok u nekim drugim dijelovima grada još uvijek nemate uopće razvijenu dovoljno razvijenu turističku ponudu. Dakle vrlo je bitno da se tom problemu pristupi na način da se da se promatra promatra dakle na nekakvoj dovoljnoj razini analitike da tako kažem da se problem može shvatiti jer mislim da bi bilo jako loše ići sa onom one size fits all rješenjima jer na taj način niti ćemo tamo gdje treba onima kojima treba smanjiti problem ga uspješno smanjiti niti onim destinacijama gdje bi možda trebali gdje bi željeli potaknuti turizam ćemo ga uspjeti dovoljno potaknuti. Evo to je što se tiče od gospođe Brnjac.
Onda smo imali Attoro je l' tako? To je bio više neki komentar gospodina Attoro tako da ne znam šta bih tu komentirao. Mislim da je da se slažem da je Malta dobar primjer destinacije koja isto tako ima ja sam više puta posjetio Maltu i Malta je negdje otprilike veličine kao neki prosječni hrvatski otok recimo Brač ili tako, a broj turista koji posjeti Maltu je zapravo nevjerojatan i mislim da je gustoća i intenzitet turizma nešto što je što je ovaj što je posebna priča sama za sebe što je jedinstveno u nekakvim europskim europskim razmjerima.
I imali smo isto tako pitanje vezano za za za Europsku komisiju i za njihov stav rekao bih prema short-term rentalsu. Koliko sam ja, nisam baš najbolje informiran o stavovima Europske komisije, ali ono što znam je da stav Europske komisije prema kratkoročnom najmu je zapravo dobar, ali onaj dio gdje mislim da da ne bih išao tako daleko je dakle ograničavanje kupnje nekretnina. Dakle po mom mišljenju je pravo vlasništva dakle osnovno ljudsko pravo, temeljno ljudsko pravo i to se ne bi trebalo ograničavati. Možete dati ljudima da plate porez ako imaju dvije ili više nekretnina, možete ih na kroz mjere fiskalne politike, kroz mjere politike prostornog planiranja, kroz različite druge javne politike na neki način obeshrabriti da idu u tom smjeru, ali nikako ne bih išao kroz zabrane. Ne znam je li ima nešto da sam zaboravio, ako ima se ispričavam.
Marian Muro
Ahora que no cuenten, pongamos a cero otra vez. En primer lugar, bueno, quiero comentar en relación a la intervención de mi colega de Croacia, la verdad es que discrepo al cien por cien, le diría que prácticamente en sus afirmaciones. Soy una gran estudiosa del fenómeno de las viviendas turísticas, hice la primera normativa en el año 2010, he asesorado a muchos gobiernos y países y precisamente me ha llamado la la la me ha llamado mucho la atención cuando usted ha comentado que producen una concentración en el espacio. Las viviendas turísticas tienen una característica muy peculiar, es la descentralización. Los hoteles están en todos donde están los activos turísticos de una ciudad, piensen en Londres, piensen en les puedo poner veinte mil ejemplos.
Las viviendas turísticas ¿qué hacen? dispersan, ayudan a que la gente pueda dispersarse por otros barrios de la ciudad, en qué contribuye, en que esa riqueza también se reparte por zonas no turísticas. El panadero de abajo, el comerciante de abajo, y reparte la riqueza. Ese es uno de los factores además muy relevantes en todos los estudios que hay sobre las viviendas turísticas en el mundo. Usted ha hecho otra pregunta ¿es bueno o malo el alquiler turístico? Es que ni es bueno ni es malo, todo puede ser malo, todo puede ser bueno.
Me refiero, todas las cosas se tienen que hacer con equilibrio. ¿Es bueno o malo que una ciudad solo tenga hoteles? es malo. ¿Por qué? porque volveríamos a situaciones de monopolio, porque muchos de ustedes no podrían viajar con sus familias, porque no podrían pagar los precios de los hoteles, porque mucha gente que va a grandes ciudades a hacerse tratamientos oncológicos o de otro tipo no podrían y se alojan precisamente en un apartamento porque no están para estar en hoteles yéndose al restaurante. Esa es la función social que también tienen las viviendas turísticas. O sea en el momento en que las eliminemos, los que estamos aquí ya no iremos a según qué sitios, desde luego yo con cuatro hijos no me lo podré permitir.
Por tanto, hay que tener en cuenta su función social. ¿Son buenos o malos? es importante el equilibrio. Cada ciudad en función de su idiosincrasia tiene que valorar hasta qué punto puede compatibilizar ese uso económico.
Pero si ustedes me permiten, hacemos mucha mención a los usos, a los usos turísticos, pero yo a nadie le he oído hablar de los usos económicos. ¿Qué pasa con 40.000, por ejemplo, viviendas que hay en la ciudad de Barcelona que son peluquerías, centros de masajes, que son academias de idiomas? ¿Eso no son también viviendas? ¿Qué pasa con 60.000 viviendas vacías que hay en la ciudad de Barcelona que nadie quiere alquilar porque le da miedo que se metan a alguien que luego no pueden sacar? Es que estamos con esos dos que le acabo de decir, ya habríamos resuelto el problema de las 10.000 viviendas en Barcelona.
Por tanto, un primer apunte con todos los respetos y con todo el respeto que tengo a esta institución, faltaría más, de la que yo aprendo, pero echo en falta en esta normativa y en esta regulación que solo se está haciendo referencia al uso del alquiler turístico, cuando ustedes ahora van por toda Barcelona y solo hay alquileres en viviendas, tengo aquí fotos de alquiler de oficinas. ¿Qué pasa que allá no pueden vivir la gente? O sea, el fenómeno es mucho más extenso de lo que estamos diciendo. Le quería comentar también cuando la señora Chaibi habla de que está contenta, ¿no?, porque se ha demostrado que los alquileres de corta duración inciden en la asequibilidad de la vivienda. ¿Pero dónde lo ha leído usted?
Si no lo pone en ningún sitio. No existe esto que acaba de decir usted. Yo creo que me sé el reglamento que publicaron el día 9 como el árbol genealógico de mis hijos y en ningún momento se especifica esto. La Comisión no está prejuzgando. El Parlamento no está juzgando.
El Parlamento está incorporando unos principios del propio derecho de la Comisión a una materia concreta que es esta. En ningún párrafo y en ninguna línea se establece la correlación entre la existencia de pisos turísticos y la asequibilidad en la vivienda. También quería comentar y aquí sí que les quiero pedir disculpas a todos los que están aquí, y es la mención que yo estoy haciendo constante a Cataluña y a Barcelona, pero con todos mis respetos, ¿por qué lo hago? En primer lugar, porque fue la primera región que reguló las viviendas turísticas cuando yo era precisamente directora de turismo de Cataluña hace 20 años aproximadamente. Y en segundo lugar, porque entiendo que un caso en el que se está vulnerando de una forma tan, tan, tan, tan exagerada la seguridad jurídica, esta Comisión lo tiene que tener presente.
Es decir, no podemos obviar, somos la primera región, la primera ciudad del mundo que eliminará las licencias turísticas en el año 2028. Recuerdo que en Nueva York no había licencias turísticas, con lo cual no habían efectos jurídicos, con lo cual entiendo que alguna lección tiene que sacar esta Comisión de lo que, de lo que está pasando. No son ni buenas ni malas. O sea, hay que respetar y lo más importante de todo es que la gente pueda acceder a una vivienda asequible. Poner freno a esta situación tan tremenda para mucha gente.
Pero lo que no puede ser es que solo se establezcan medidas para un agente de la economía. Eso lo siento mucho, pero no es equitativo. No puede ser que digan que van a aprobar las medidas solo las que se adopten después de la entrada en vigor. Oiga, todos los países pónganse a restringir, pero vamos, tienen un año aproximadamente. Eso no es equitativo.
Yo lo único que intento es poner de manifiesto estas situaciones en el buen entendido que es de interés de todos saber lo que se está produciendo en otra región que padece de turismo, que padece de masificación, que padece, pero la masificación no la, no la dan los clientes que van a los pisos turísticos, que también se lo quería comentar.
La masificación es la concentración de determinados visitantes o personas alrededor de un recurso turístico de interés. Y pueden estar alojados en hoteles, en la casa de mi vecino, pueden venir simplemente a hacer una visita de un día o pueden estar en viviendas turísticas. ¿Masifica más una persona en función del alojamiento donde está? ¿Dónde se ha dicho esto? ¿Dónde está?
Muchas gracias y gracias por la paciencia.
Nina Nesterova
Yes, thank you very much and I'll be very short because I think my distinguished panel speakers already covered a lot of answers on the question. And in my answer I want to come back on what was actually said by Mr. Attard and Madame Calonnec. I think it's really of vital importance to come back to definition, exactly what you told, because as I told before, we are dealing with a very complex system. Do we have real understanding of this system? We have really a general picture of it, and at this moment we need to decompose the system into smaller elements, get a grip of those, and then we need to bring those elements back together to be able to develop this targeted measures.
So it really starts about defining the segments. It's really starts about defining concrete categories that we want to address, and sometimes starting from small is really the best approach because then we know that we are really targeting the most important problem. So segments in vast parts, so like example which was given, commercial versus non-commercial. And another part is also the same, it can bring, as I told, indeed positive and negative impact. So we know already this highly urbanized areas, we know highly concentrated tourism areas can be a part of the problem, right, for the short-term rentals.
But still it brings opportunities for spreading. It was said today also within the audience. So how we can make sure that, yeah, we really able to use this type of instrument to achieve our all our cross-sectoral goals. But for this again, we need to decompose the system and bring it back for targeted solutions. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. And now I will ask our colleagues from the European Commission if somebody wants to take the floor and add some remarks.
Lucia Caudet
Yes, thank you, and thank you for the many comments and questions. To Borja Jiménez and Madame Calonnec, of course nobody is claiming that the Affordable Housing Act will single-handedly solve the housing crisis. Yes, we primarily and long-term need supply. But firstly, the European Commission, and you are very well of this, we can only act within the limits of our competence. So in the area of supply our competence is limited.
It's true that we are working on the simplification package, we're working on investment in the field of construction, a number of other initiatives, and I also like to point out that together with the Affordable Housing Act, the same day we presented a recommendation on housing supply which incorporates many of the recommendations made by this house. Secondly, supply takes time. And in the meantime, the reality is that authorities are taking action nowadays and they are adopting restrictions. So the idea is to frame those restrictions and create a more operational and coherent framework.
On the compatibility of already existing measures with the Affordable Housing Act, I will resist the temptation to offer such an assessment now. For the measures that are in place before the Affordable Housing Act becomes applicable, they will continue to be assessed under the current framework. And for future measures, it will be primarily for local authorities to make an assessment compared to the Affordable Housing Act if any amendments are required to bring them in line. Madame Chaibi, on whether the entry point to determine whether an area is under housing stress is too strict, not in our view. We made an assessment, we carried out significant amount of modeling to make sure that the price-to-income threshold and the growth of the past 10 years can, as a first entry point, capture the areas that really are suffering most acutely from housing stress.
It is not the only determining factor. We also have a second layer of housing stress assessment, which is more left to local authorities in terms of supply, demand, and population trends. But of course, it will be for this House and for the Council to assess whether we got the calibration right. On the question that was raised, and I appreciate it was more for the panelists, on whether there can be an EU-wide definition of what constitutes a commercial STR activity, the Affordable Housing Act tries to capture the spirit of being more targeted towards the activities that are more professional or commercial. But we left the definition of what constitutes a commercial activity to subsidiarity.
We assessed very carefully various legislations across the EU. Some of them are based on the number of nights, on the number of properties, or whether the entity is a legal entity or not. But even a legal entity can, in some instances, be a family that has created a company to be able to acquire a house. So we have the general proportionality requirement, but we resisted the temptation to harmonize and impose a top-down approach on how to define commercial activities, with one exception, which is reflecting the Court of Justice jurisprudence. Short-term rental activity on your own primary residence, as defined under national law, should be exempted from any restriction on housing affordability and availability grounds because those are not properties removed from the market.
On the question by MEP Danielsson on whether for the implementation of the STR regulation of 2024, whether the platforms have sufficient technical infrastructure to collect the data and take down illegal listings, our view is yes. However, the regulation only entered into application in May, so let's of course monitor together and see if there's any issues in its application in practice. And the final but very significant question by Madame Le Callennec on measures on acquisition and use being proposed in the scope of the Affordable Housing Act. Firstly, the scope of the Act does not reflect the fact that the Commission considers that measures are appropriate or not appropriate. They respond to the following logic.
Firstly, economically, we were not looking at regulating a specific business model, but looking at a phenomenon where various forms of what we call non-primary use of housing can aggravate housing pressures where the stock is already limited. Secondly, that this is also an area where local authorities across the EU, but also across the political spectrum, are already taking action, for example through primary residence obligations, by imposing an authorization on change of use, or measures to deter prolonged vacancy. And the same legal principles apply from the Treaty and the Court of Justice jurisprudence, which is that those restrictions can exceptionally be justified for housing affordability reasons, but they must be designed in a way that is proportionate.
With the Affordable Housing Act, we're therefore giving a common, more operational framework to those principles, and in fact we're introducing more safeguards to the right to property than is currently the case. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mrs. Gaudet. And now before closing, I'll give the floor to Mrs. Grapini, the vice-chair of IMCO committee, for her final remarks. Thank you very much.
Maria Grapini
Thank you very much. În primul rând, vreau să vă felicit pentru dezbatere. Aștept să puneți și căștile. Să vă felicit pentru dezbaterea organizată din perspectivă și mulțumesc și Comisiei și speakerilor de aici, dar și colegilor care au pus întrebări. Din perspectiva IMCO, eu cred că nu trebuie să contraponem închirierile pe termen scurt cu regulamentul pentru accesul la locuințe.
Din punctul meu de vedere, ele sunt complementare. Trebuie să avem închirieri pe termen scurt complementar cu închirierile la hotel, cum foarte bine a explicat doamna Marin Muro. Problema pe care eu am desprins-o din dezbatere este următoarea și nu am primit totuși răspunsurile de la Comisie. S-a desprins că nu sunt suficiente date. Ori dacă noi nu avem suficiente date, este și greu să luăm decizii.
Pe de altă parte, trebuie să înțelegem că turismul, de exemplu, este subsidiaritate, nu este de competență europeană și poate Comisia să meargă până la un anumit nivel. În același timp, din perspectiva IMCO, vrem să avem o competiție corectă în piață între închirierea pe termen scurt și activitatea hotelieră, pensiuni, hoteluri. Așa cum spuneați, doamna Marin, închirierile pe termen scurt nu sunt nici rele, nici bune, dar sunt utile. Deci nu le putem elimina. Ce m-ar interesa pe mine și asta trebuie să gândim, cum putem să facem accesul la locuințe, atât timp cât oferta de locuințe acum se diminuează dacă ne uităm la câte autorizații de construcții se dau și mergem mai departe de ce, pentru că sunt prețuri foarte mari, inputurile, energia, materiale de construcții și așa mai departe.
Pe de altă parte, poate că v-ați gândit bine, Comisia, să simplificați autorizațiile. Cred că ar trebui să gândim cum putem să optimizăm cele două lucruri și anume închirierea pe termen scurt să meargă mai departe regional, local, unde se știe cel mai bine. Pe de altă parte, accesul la locuințe depinde de fapt de cum facem noi piața noastră internă să fie competitivă, da, pentru că depindem și importăm foarte multe materiale din țări terțe și atunci evident că nu putem. Și sigur că nu avem o situație economică egală în cele 27 de țări, de aceea este și foarte greu să reglementăm unitar, pentru că fiecare stat membru ce înseamnă locuință accesibilă în România, ce înseamnă locuință accesibilă în Luxemburg, când veniturile și nivelul de venituri este diferit. Dar cred că de aici totuși putem să plecăm.
A mai ridicat colegul din Malta o problemă și asta este o problemă pe care o regăsesc în toate actele aproape care le emitem noi aici și rog Comisia, trebuie să explicităm mult mai bine termenii, să definim mult mai bine termenii, pentru că dacă fiecare înțelege altceva din acel termen, ați pus întrebarea, eu n-am văzut că ar fi venit un răspuns, sunt sau nu sunt servicii comerciale chiriile pe termen scurt.
Și multe alte elemente care ne ajută să aplicăm corect, pentru că nu-i suficient să reglementăm. Problema mare care o avem în piața internă și se creează distorsiuni este la aplicarea reglementărilor. Asta este cea mai mare problemă. Eu vreau să vă mulțumesc și voi duce mesajul în Comisia IMCO ceea ce ați discutat aici și pentru clarificări, sigur că putem continua. Mulțumesc mult și celor trei și Comisiei Europene.
Mulțumesc.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mrs. Grapini. Now, dear guests, thank you for being here today and sharing your insights. There is no doubt that housing affordability and availability demand urgent attention, especially in communities feeling the strain. Yet, short-term rentals equally call for careful, well-calibrated regulation, recognizing their significance to the tourism economy. Finding this balance is essential to shaping destinations that stay sustainable, vibrant, and enjoyable for all.
Thank you very much. Colleagues, not so relaxed, we have to move on. Please take your seats, we have to continue. Thank you very much.
Take your seats please. Hello. I'm going to start Nicolina. Okay now dear colleagues let's now move on to the next agenda point regarding the exchange of views of the INI draft report of a regulatory framework to promote the uptake of sustainable aviation fuels. I would like to remind you that the deadline for the tabling amendments has been set for 30 September 2026 at 12 and now I will invite our rapporteur Mr. Edtgen for his draft report for three minutes.
You have the floor Mr. Edtgen. Thank you.
Jan-Christoph Oetjen
Thank you. Thank you Madam President. Dear colleagues I think it's a very timely debate that we are having and because we're in the middle of the discussions on how to continue decarbonizing transport and aviation obviously is one of those hard to abate sectors where we see that with the policy framework that we have in place with Refuel Aviation and ETS Aviation on the other hand that we're not managing to have the investments in alternative fuels as we would need them in the Union in order to fulfill the targets set out in Refuel EU Aviation. So having this INI report on how to accelerate and how to put a framework in place that supports the industry on the one hand and corrects some of the deficiencies of the actual framework is from my understanding very timely because we think that a book and claim mechanism in the European Union would allow aircraft operators to well it would allow aircraft operators to purchase the SAF independently from the physical supply so that we're not obliged anymore to have the delivery of SAF to all Union airports as stated in Refuel EU Aviation. We in our report that I've presented we work with two stages.
A first stage is building on the legislation that we have already in place. So these are the reporting obligations under Refuel EU Aviation. These are the reporting obligations under RED and they shall be the the base for the SAF tickets that we are creating and those SAF tickets should be then the basis for the airlines to claim the SAF ETS allowances that have been put in place with ETS Aviation in the last mandate but they are they are now under discussion in the ETS proposal to be first prolonged and to to have more of them as well.
And we have a second stage where we need some legislation where we could would like to propose to make the aircraft operators account holders in the Union database that is established under the Renewable Energy Directive and to make those SAF tickets tradable. Not in order to have speculation, but in order to have flexibility for for airlines and then those this mechanism should apply only to sustainable aviation fuels that are uplifted in Union airports. We think as well that the Commission should work on the RefuelEU Aviation in the sense of having a more linear approach on the targets because we have this stepwise approach whilst in maritime it's a more flexible mechanism and we think that this should be looked at. And we question as well the preferential treatment related to SAF supply to islands. Why?
Because we figured out that today Mallorca is the fourth biggest hub of SAF trading. Well, this was not the intention of the preferential treatment of of islands in this sense. Why is it so? Because airlines get more SAF allowances if they tank in Mallorca than if they tank in Barcelona, which is from my understanding quite ridiculous. So I think that we should work on this.
But this is more a side side thing. The most important is we should put in place a book-and-claim system. A book-and-claim system would give flexibility to airlines, would put more competition in the fuels market, would by this help fuel producers that are that are startups that are bringing SAF to the market to to be competitive in this market and we would decouple the physical delivery of SAF from the uptake and the possibility to to claim allowances. As this is very technical and complicated, there is a big explanatory statement. I think that you all read it and all saw it, but in you know we're time we're limited with the amount of characters in the in the report, so some of the context you can find it in the explanatory statement and I'm looking forward to a good discussion now.
Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mr. Oetjen. Now I'll give the floor to the shadows who want to take the floor, starting with Nikolina Brnjac for two minutes, please.
Nikolina Brnjac
Thank you, Chair. So I fully support the rapporteur's ambition to establish a permanent European book-and-claim system capable of supporting the cost-effective scale-up of all eligible types of SAF. And I also agree that it should be introduced through carefully designed stages, like mentioned from the rapporteur. Credible system would allow aircraft operators to access verified SAF benefits regardless of where the fuel is physically available, and it could aggregate demand, reduce logistic barriers, strengthen transparency and traceability, and help European production reach scale while protecting the system against fraud and double counting. So my group recognized this potential early on, and two years ago we initiated an EU budgetary preparatory action on book-and-claim for aviation.
The following year we successfully secured its extension to maritime transport, and I therefore invite the Commission to present the findings of this work at a dedicated meeting in our context of our INI report. And already now I would like to clarify on three points.
First, which stages does the Commission envisage? Second, could existing reporting obligations and proof of sustainability provide the basis for the first stage, and what further legal and technical arrangements would be required? And third, what digital architecture should we pursue? Should the Union database play the central role, and if not, why not? And we also hear increasingly about the potential of EASA portal, and I would welcome the Commission's assessment of its possible role.
And I look forward to the Commission's guidance and to work constructively with the rapporteur and all shadows to build a broad majority for a credible and workable system. Thank you.
Johan Danielsson
Thank you, Chair. Also thank you to the rapporteur for the work done. We of course agree that SAF is the key to decarbonising European aviation and that we need to look at different ways to facilitate its uptake and develop a European SAF market. Book and claim is for us not an objective in itself. The priority is increasing SAF production and supply in Europe, keeping us on track to meet our targets and ensuring that SAF is physically available across European airports.
I think also we should in the context of this report also look carefully at additional flexibilities and support for aircraft operators that are being discussed under the ETS revision. When it comes to a potential book and claim system, we believe that it should be transitional, targeted and limited to fuels that are produced in Europe. And we will put amendments to try to ensure this in the report. And then of course also importantly, underlined by the rapporteur already, but it also must be very clear that it includes strong safeguards on traceability, double counting and fraud. Because I think this is going to be a challenge also to put significant demands on the Union database, which is of course not yet fully operational, and also on the Commission with the responsibility they will get to overseeing a system and make it waterproof.
So with this said, book and claim cannot solve the whole problem by itself. It's not the silver bullet, but it can be one part of the puzzle. And I am sure that we will continue to work together with the rapporteurs and the other shadow rapporteurs to find a strong majority behind an EP position on this. So thank you.
Jutta Paulus
Thank you very much. Mrs. Paulus. Good afternoon. You have the floor.
Good afternoon, that was quick. Well, actually sorry for being late, I had another appointment. And yes, we do agree that we have to discuss how to promote SAF because that's the only way to get the emissions from aviation down. And also the build-up of the ReFuelEU revision next year is a very important point. We are a bit skeptical when it comes to book and claim, on the one hand because we really have to put strong safeguards to limiting fraud.
So we should limit book and claim to the airports that are actually have a physical supply, as you have also said in your draft report. The rapporteur's approach on ensuring the physical supply to those airports, we very much agree with that.
And also we would like to see some safeguards against speculation. Also we would like to have the book-and-claim system, if at all, only for a limited period of time because our goal must be that airlines do not go forward with using fossil fuels and claiming e-SAFs or SAFs from other places, but we have to make them available wherever possible. So therefore we are very much in favor of having a sunset deadline for a book-and-claim system. And also I'm quite happy that the implementation report stated that more than 80% of SAFs are already produced in Europe. And we believe that this is the way forward, that we should not rely on foreign suppliers for a commodity that is so important also for European airlines.
So I have a couple of questions. The first one is regarding the idea of a more linear trajectory instead of a more progressive one, because that would make it more predictable and push the investors forward. And secondly, I would like to learn on what you mean by the idea that SAF tickets should be the basis for airlines to claim SAF ETS allowances in the ETS directive and not the proof of physical uplift of SAF. Because I think that would be a more credible way also for the customers, because if they say, well, if this is for ETS only, but they're not really having physical SAFs, we're not sure whether the ETS money should go that way. And we need to minimize competitive distortions affecting European carriers.
So in this sense, probably could you second your proposal to the extension of the system to extra-EEA routes? So I think we would have to debate a bit about the right instruments. Thank you.
Volker Schnurrbusch
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the rapporteur for his draft report. SAF is currently still significantly more expensive than conventional aviation fuel, and the report recognizes concerns about the impact of SAF costs on European aviation competitiveness. If Europe wants to decarbonize aviation without undermining the competitiveness of its airlines, we need a framework that is flexible, transparent, and realistic. In doing that, the EU should avoid creating unnecessary administrative burdens, as the draft report also states. And the proposed book-and-claim system should build on existing reporting and sustainability requirements rather than creating a completely new regulatory structure.
Book-and-claim can improve flexibility without requiring physical SAF availability at every airport. Under the proposal, SAF could be physically supplied at one EU airport while an airline operating elsewhere could purchase the associated SAF certificate and claim the environmental attributes. This would be very helpful for our airlines in their current situation. Traceability and anti-fraud safeguards are essential in my view. The report correctly proposes using the Union database and certified SAF tickets to ensure the environmental attributes remain traceable and that double counting is prevented.
With regard to flexibility mechanism, I support the rapporteur's idea to extend it.
It would indeed allow SAF purchased in one location to generate compliance value elsewhere. I also would like to express my support for assessing whether the current eligibility feedstock base for SAF production is sufficient, because we have to be aware of this conflict between food and fuel. We must replace the current SAF mandate with a predictable linear trajectory. Gradual annual increases will effectively prevent sudden market shocks and artificial price spikes. This clear roadmap is exactly what airlines and fuel producers need to unlock long-term investments in sustainable aviation.
So we acknowledge a large number of positive aspects in this report that we can support, even if we remain critical of the trajectory of SAF use in general. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. And now I think we are connected with Monsieur Calfan online.
François Kalfon
Okay, I can start my speech in French, so I start it. 460 milliards de dollars, ce sont les profits réalisés par les grands pétroliers comme BP, Shell et Total depuis le début de la guerre en Ukraine. Mais au moment de déclarer les impôts en Europe, les bénéfices s'envolent. Les grands pétroliers veulent continuer de marger avec l'essence à 2,50 euros, voire 3 euros demain, ce qui n'est pas soutenable sans payer leur juste part de la décarbonation. Nous devons les forcer à investir dans la décarbonation des carburants, en particulier le secteur aérien, comme nous avons su le faire vis-à-vis du secteur automobile qui finalement accepte la décarbonation.
Cela se passe par trois priorités. Taxer les superprofits et flécher ces revenus vers la décarbonation, premièrement. Deuxièmement, garder le cap d'incorporation des carburants de synthèse dans ReFuelEU Aviation. Troisièmement, obliger les pétroliers à investir dans les e-SAF made in EU. Vous pouvez compter sur nous et l'ensemble des membres du groupe S&D pour soutenir les ménages modestes, pour déployer les carburants du futur et réduire notre dépendance aux carburants fossiles importés, ce que nous voyons comme une conséquence dans un moment aussi grave de crise.
L'argent est là, il faut aller le chercher là où il est. Je vous remercie.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. So now, before I give back the floor to Mr. Erkut to conclude the debate, I will ask Mr. Filip Cornelis, Director of Aviation at DG MOVE, for two minutes, please. Thank you.
Filip CORNELIS
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. From our side also, we would like to welcome very much the report's or the draft report's views on the promotion of the uptake of SAF, and it's very nice to also see the consensus or the broad support at least within this committee. We also view the way forward as a gradual approach towards a possible European book-and-claim mechanism. In fact, we are already addressing some of the elements that are identified as steps. For example, we have proposed in the new ETS proposal more flexibility for claiming SAF.
We are also in preparatory work for extending the traceability of SAF all the way to airlines, using also the Union database. We have read with great interest also your proposals on other aspects of the design of ReFuelEU, notably on the mandates design, the question of the linear trajectory, the possible enlarging of feedstock. So we will take those on board in our own reflections, particularly as we prepare for a a review of the ReFuelEU regulation next year. We have also, as part of the European Parliament's preparatory action that was already mentioned, advanced, or rather EASA on our behalf, on all our behalf, has advanced on the assessment of the feasibility of a book-and-claim system. And several of their preliminary findings already concur with the views that are expressed in the report.
And I can say on our behalf and on behalf of EASA, we would be very happy to also present the results of that EASA work to you. Overall, I can say the feedback we've received so far shows that indeed book-and-claim could potentially support the EU SAF market development, although certain challenges remain on potential unintended market impacts, and we should look into those and, if necessary, mitigate them. Also, and I think it was mentioned by several interventions, any trading mechanism would require a strong digital registry to guarantee the credibility and the traceability in the Union database and to prevent fraud or double counting. So the Union database, we are working on its development. Probably it cannot be as such a trading platform, but it can provide the backbone for the the security of the of the proofs of compliance and sustainability.
There is also the EASA sustainability portal that is functioning and can also play a role in this context, and we might develop it further if that is useful. We will look at all those topics as part of the review of ReFuelEU Aviation next year. And of course, we will be taking on board the final outcome of this own-initiative report. And so many thanks for for your work. It is making our work easier.
Jan-Christoph Oetjen
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair, and thanks to colleagues for very constructive approach to this INI report. Let me maybe start with Nikolina and in saying that obviously what we intend to do is to have a mechanism that is lean, so that does not add additional bureaucratic burden and additional reporting obligation. That's why we want to use the reporting obligations that are already existing, and we want to use a digital architecture that is already, as you heard, in in preparation. That's was the aim that or the intention of the report.
And you mentioned the preparatory action that was that was put in place. And I at this moment I would like to to thank as well first colleagues who had the good idea to to start this preparatory action, but as well the colleagues from Commission and from EASA who who helped us with input on the on the report. And together with the secretariat, we managed to include already parts of this. And I think it would be really added value for us to to listen to this as well here in the in the committee.
And I would like to agree with Johan as well that the book and claim system is not the goal in itself, but it's a tool that can help us. And my aim is to have production capacity in Europe, right? That's what we should aim for. But you know that we don't have this production capacity at the moment. And you know as well that this production capacity will not grow at the same speed in all the parts of Europe, right?
So when we talk to people, especially those who want to invest in eSAF, they look at, okay, which port can I use? Which spot can I use? Some of them are in Amsterdam, right? So this would be, I think, at the beginning, this would be a good starting point to start the uplift of eSAF, for example. And we have this sub-mandate, and I want to keep it as well in ReFuel Aviation.
And that's part of the reply to you, Jutta, that that's the reason why we want to base it on the SAF tickets. So we are claiming, or the proposal is to claim the ETS allowances on basis of the SAF tickets. But the SAF tickets obviously are linked to the uplift of SAF. It's more in order to have it more practical for the airlines to use it. And the same goes for the EEA routes, right?
Because I think that we should have the same scope for ETS and for ReFuel Aviation so that we can then use the book and claim mechanism on this whole area, right? That's the arguments behind. And same goes for the, we see it from the maritime sector, where they don't have those steps, but they have a kind of banking and borrowing system. I think if we look at reality in the aviation fuels market, this would be more proper for aviation as well. But one thing is clear: nobody wants that double counting or fraud is happening, right?
That's why I agree that we need safeguards for this. But I think with the system that we are proposing, that the safeguards are in place. And at the end, it's a mechanism that does not create additional burden, but helps especially those who want to invest in fuels production capacity. And that's what we're lacking at the moment. We are lacking fuels production capacity in Europe.
And if we can help in a way, especially those who want to invest in eSAF, especially those scale-ups that are not the big oil companies, but that are challenging those, then I think book and claim is a good system and maybe even, Johan, a target in itself. Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Erkut. Now, dear colleagues, let's move on to our next point of today's agenda, which is also related to aviation. I'm referring to the implementation of the ReFuel Aviation regulation, which was adopted in 2023 in the framework of the Fit for 55 package. The Commission has prepared a short presentation on this subject, which was shared with you last week together with the ReFuel Aviation annual technical report published by EASA.
I would like to welcome again Mr. Filip Cornelis, Director in DG MOVE, who will make a presentation on the state of play on the implementation. And after this presentation, I will give the floor for three minutes more or less to to our coordinators and any other who wants to take the floor for one minute. So I without any further ado, I pass the floor to Mr. Cornelis for 10 minutes. Thank you very much.
Filip CORNELIS
Thank thank you very much, Madam Chair. We also have a couple of slides which are up there and I think we can go immediately two or three slides further. So first just very quick recap of the main one more one more or two more. Yeah, one more. Yeah.
Recap of the main objectives of the ReFuelEU Aviation initiative. So basically there were two objectives. One is that we want to create a or wanted and we have created a framework for scaling up the production and uptake of SAF across the EU to decarbonize aviation and meet our climate targets. And at the same time, we wanted to do this in a way that we preserve the internal market and therefore that this is happening on the basis of harmonized rules at the EU level, so there is a level playing field among all the airlines that as you know operate across the EU. Next slide.
So this is also a quick reminder of the scope. It covers all the EU Member States and from 2026 also Switzerland. And and the shares of SAF that need to be blended into aviation fuel are on the left there. As you can see, we start modestly and then goes up to 70% in 2050, of which half shall be synthetic aviation fuels. And the first synthetic aviation fuel sub-mandate starts in 2030.
Then next slide. Also, that's the last one to recall the main the main aspects of the regulation. The main regulated entity are the aviation fuel suppliers. They are the ones who are mandated to ensure a sufficient blending of SAF into the jet fuel that they supply to their customers. Their customers are the airlines and and they have a a small obligation, namely to uplift fuels at Union airports, so that's the famous anti-tankering provision.
And then the airports also have an obligation, namely to facilitate the access of aircraft operators to SAF. And there we are talking more about the infrastructure and the the market of ground handling. And Member States finally are required to put in place a penalty system to enforce the regulation on economic operators in their territories. Now, what is the status and you can go two slides further. Status of the regulation.
So it entered into force in 24 and the first year of the first mandate was 2025 when we had a 2% blending mandate. EASA has been designated as our supporter in for this regulation and they have published already a first technical report last year in October that covered the year 24, so actually the year before the the mandate started.
And so they have just now published the first annual technical report covering the mandate, the first mandate, and that's of course the reason why we are here today. So coming to what we are here for, in the next slide is to show you how things have progressed in that first year of the application of the regulation. So on the right-hand side you see that we have 18, no less than 18 member states already with operational or announced SAF production facilities. SAF production side is just as important as the uptake side. And we also have a quite high amount of SAF that turned out to be produced in the EU and not just imported, so we are talking around 80%.
As regards synthetic SAF, we had a demonstration plant at industrial scale that was launched, and we have around 50 projects in the pipeline, not yet reaching a final investment decision stage, but some of them are quite advanced in the design side. The really good news is on the left side there, and you see the increase of SAF actually consumed in Europe or actually supplied. We were at 0.60% in 24 and it jumped to almost 2.8% in 25, so we exceeded the mandate by 0.8%. And then we also show here the type of SAF that was supplied. Most of it, as expected, is biofuels, namely the HEFA pathway.
What we do also have a little bit of so-called advanced aviation biofuels that use other feedstocks, and then a category of unidentified feedstocks. On the next slide, we show you, or EASA has worked out the compliance with the anti-tankering rules. So on the left you see the fuel that is actually uplifted and the minimum 90% is the blue line, so we exceed that overall uplift in the EU. So there has been really a change compared to the past, and that you see on the right-hand graph, where you see a lot more airlines above the line, a line of 90%, than we saw in the past. And presumably there are quite a lot of smaller ones who are still below, but the big airlines are clearly above the 90% and respecting the anti-tankering requirement.
Then the next slide shows you, it's not an obligation under the regulation for airlines to buy certain amounts, but we do have some statistical information. And there you see that KLM has been consuming the biggest amount, followed by Ryanair, Transavia and so on, so you see the list there on the left. And on the right-hand graph, you see where the SAF has been claimed for support. So half of it has been claimed under ETS, so to get the zero rating and presumably allowances. Part of it under the UK ETS, and then 2% has also been claimed under CORSIA scheme.
And the rest has not been claimed because a lot of the SAF that is uplifted does not qualify today for a support because of the scope of the SAF allowance and of the ETS system, which is what we have now in the revision of ETS proposed to change.
Then on the next slide you see the the geographical scope is also quite interesting to see. Basically two two elements stand out. First of all SAF was actually delivered in no less than 121 different airports. But the amount of SAF was very very different and you see there that a very large amount of SAF was actually delivered to Amsterdam airport and followed by the other big airlines across different member states. And then the right the the bar on the right is all the other airports.
So you see there quite a lot also going to not only the biggest airports. 121 airports I said spread over 23 member states. So it's a it's actually a reasonable distribution considering that we don't mandate a particular percentage by member state. Last slide on the implementation is the next one. Yes so I mentioned at the beginning that member states had to put in place national penalty schemes.
This has proved a little bit more challenging and we have launched infringement procedures against 11 member states because they have not yet put in place those penalty schemes and we have started EU dialogues with member states to ensure consistency of the application of the regulation. Of course we are still in the early years and I'm sure we'll be able to correct those situations as we go forward towards 2030. Now then a few words on accompanying measures because that is very important. First of all next slide last year was it last year we put together the eSAF early movers coalition where eight member states pledged to be leaders in bringing eSAF into reality and promoting investment into production plant. The most active member states there so far have been Germany Luxembourg and Austria who have committed to launch a pilot double-sided auction.
Actually they made an official announcement just last week with a a serious budget of 2.1 billion euros and we expect this auction to take place in 2027. We also expect that it will be approved from state aid perspective in the coming weeks. And then we have a study ongoing as we had announced in the sustainable transport investment plan a study on possible future EU-wide mechanism for double-sided auctions that obviously will take into account the experience with the early movers action. On the next slide we recall the SAF allowances support which the Parliament had introduced into the last ETS directive. In 2025 5.2 million ETS allowances were distributed among no less than 130 operators for a total value of 430 million euros which is a lot more than the year before in 24 only 100 million were claimed among only 53 operators.
So we see also the SAF allowances are are being used quite successfully and at this rate they will run out well before the end of this decade hence the importance of the Commission's proposal on the revision of the ETS directive.
Then a few words on the next steps for the ReFuelEU Aviation regulation. We have announced a review and revision of the regulation. We have announced that in the action plan for regulatory deep cleaning and also in sustainable transport investment plan. So this revision will serve a double purpose of looking again at the regulation to see what is working well and what needs to be improved, without however touching on the ambition of the regulation. And on the other hand, we will be looking at possibilities to simplify and reduce the administrative burden on some of the aspects of the regulation.
So and this we expect to be able to make a proposal in the second half of next year. And the work has already started to prepare a study of the implementation. There will be also an implementation report next year as required by the regulation. And we will be reaching out to stakeholders in the coming months to receive their views, although I have to say that we have we are in very regular contact with stakeholders and we know already basically what they are going to tell us. And very much also reflecting the the report that we just had presented by Mr. Erkin.
Last slide just to recall that we are also working on an EU aviation strategy. SAF policy and more widely the decarbonisation of our aviation sector will of course figure prominently in this aviation strategy, but it will not be the only topic. This strategy will be placed in the context of the overall political objectives and political challenges that we are facing today. And I'm referring to fiercer global competition, geopolitical tensions, security risks, as well as the need to digitalise much more this also this sector. So our priorities will be to look at supporting the industry's competitiveness, also the aeronautical industry, not only the service providers, protecting our European connectivity to the rest of the world, improving our strategic autonomy, maintaining our industrial leadership in aeronautics, but also on sustainable and digital technologies, enhance our resilience and security, make the best use of dual-use capabilities in this sector, and of course continue to support passenger rights, labour conditions and future attracting young people to the sector.
So those will be the broadly the big themes. Of course we are still working on this strategy, on the specific content to identify concrete measures and proposals that hopefully we'll be able to come forward with in the coming months. So thank you very much for your attention.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mr. Cornelis. Now we'll start our debate with our coordinators who are here. First of all, Mr. Danielsson, you have the floor, sir, for three minutes. And then we have Mr. Etkin is here, Mr. Schnurbusch is here, and I think Mr. Ricci will take the floor last but not least. Okay.
Yes, Mr. Danielsson. And if any other colleague wants to take the floor, just let us know.
Johan Danielsson
Yes, Mr. Danielsson.
Thank you, Chair. And even if we all missed Mr. Gieseke, it's nice to be able to start for once. First, I will also like to thank the Commission for being here, also presenting the important report. And I think it is encouraging that we have some progress that are being made, that we are well above the 2% target and that we also seems to therefore be remain on track to meet the overall SAF target for 2030. But I think also the report shows that there are some clear challenges left.
One, of course, being the clear price gap compared with fossil jet fuel and also that we have not yet seen the market for synthetic aviation fuels that we need. And also you show a slide that the majority of the e-fuels were produced in Europe, but of course we still see that the biofuel is mainly coming from used cooking oil and 85% of the feedstocks are still imported, 60% from China. So of course this is also a dependency that we do not want to develop. And coming from Sweden, I see that we have a considerable potential here. I think we work as a country as an example.
We have a large renewable energy resources that can be supportive to the synthetic aviation fuels. We also have high access to feedstocks for advanced biofuels, including forestry residues. So this can be a win for our industries, jobs and for the climate. And this goes not only for Sweden, but we really need to step up and increase the production of these fuels here at home and also from feedstocks here in Europe. But all these investments, and now I come to the question, this was just a lot of words, it depends on the long-term certainty provided by the ReFuelEU Aviation.
And so my question is, what is the Commission doing now with a targeted revision, simplification of ReFuelEU Aviation planned? How does the Commission ensure that this process in itself does not undermine the investment certainty created by existing targets, particularly for European synthetic fuels and advanced biofuels? Because I think it's quite reassuring what the Commission is saying, we will not touch the ambitions. But when I speak to some investors and also investors that have stopped or put on hold investment decisions, the general backtracking on climate policy in the EU are already influencing investment decisions also in SAF. I'm not saying that you are planning something else, but I think there is some additional comforting or sense of security that is needed to push these investments.
I'm not saying that you are planning something else to stick with the target, but the process it in itself, together with the general backtracking, how do we avoid that this postpone investments that we need needed already yesterday? Thank you.
Jan-Christoph Oetjen
Thank you very much. Now, Mr. Rütgen.
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Filip, for presenting this report. By the way, I forgot to ask, maybe you can tell us when the EASA report will come out that we talked about on the book and claim system, when will it be published, because this would be interesting for us here for the work in TRAN Committee. But this report on ReFuel is really a good base for our discussions. And I'm really curious as well what is happening in 2026 with the fuel prices spiking because of the war in Iran.
Let's see if the SAF uptake will continue growing, right, because it's a challenging situation. Ticket prices cannot be given or the raise to ticket prices cannot be given to customers, so airlines are really struggling at the moment. So they see at where they can reduce costs.
That's why I think it's really important that we support this long-term strategy. And I really concur with Johan on this. I think that we should stick to the targets in the sense of climate ambition and amounts. Maybe making a banking borrowing so that it's easier or smoother to reach. But from the principle, I think that we should keep the track.
I think as well, and you're totally right on this, on materials that should be used for the production of SAF. We shouldn't faire la fine bouche, I don't know how to say it in English, but it's there are residues and waste parts that really could be used that we're not using at the moment. I think as well that we should support long-term uptake agreements and I really appreciate that eight member states are going forward in this regard. Maybe others could join, but I would encourage Commission to work with those member states and supporting them in any means because this difference between long-term and short-term is a big topic. But I have a question on the ETS allowances.
You know, when we invented them, the 20 million that we have put in place were kind of a big thumb and gave a direction. It's working well and I'm really happy about this. And now you propose in the ETS revision 110 additional SAF allowances. But if we compare it in ETS with other hard-to-abate sectors, and I think that we all agree that aviation is one of the hard-to-abate sectors, then we are far below the amount of allowances that are free allowances that are given to others. And here they're not given free, they're given for market uptake of SAF, right?
So if we would take the 78%, there's studies that 78% is what we're giving to some industries, this would bring us to 500 million allowances for aviation. I don't know if we can go there, but I would like to know the reasoning in the Commission about this calculation of the 110 million SAF allowances that would bring the ETS coverage, the cost coverage to 15% compared to others.
Volker Schnurrbusch
Thank you very much. Mr. Schnurbusch.
Now that Mr. Gieseke is here, I think he has the right to speak before me. But it's your show, Madam Chair. I can take the floor, I'm prepared, I don't know. Okay. Alrighty.
So thanks very much to the Commission and I will start with the last slide or the last remarks that you made because I'm very happy that you mentioned the focus on competitiveness and industrial leadership in your aviation strategy. I think this is the right signal for the industry that is struggling right now. And as Mr. Ergin mentioned before in the topic before that, it's highly desirable of course that we have Gesundheit, bless you. It's highly desirable to increase the SAF production here in Europe or alternatively find very reliable trade partners abroad that have the capacity.
trade partners abroad that has have the capacity but any any investment right now in new technology or this technology is welcome and maybe you can elaborate either now or maybe after this meeting in in writing to the 50 EU projects that are in the pipeline because maybe you can tell us if they are like focused also in these countries in the middle of Europe that are using SAF right now or are they spread across the Union? Is are they financed completely 100% by the EU or is there a like a partnership in this? And in which stage are they? So are they just on the drawing board or are they being built right now or and in which stage are they right now and how much can they can they contribute to the to the SAF supply that is needed? Thank you.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much Mr. Schnurbusch. As you know I always follow the order. Anyway now I'm giving the floor now to Mr. Gieseke and then Mrs. Paulus from the Greens and last but not least... Yes thank you very much and sorry for being late but in fact last week we had some troubles with the TRAN committee in Greenland but I do not will tell the whole story but if you get stuck at an airport where European law is not not applicable this of course the starting point of a bad joke or just a serious problem. But online as we after Corona we learned online meetings are possible. I've listened that Johan Danielsson misses me and this is why I really ran to this meeting and we have polite behavior everyone gets the floor and I of course I want to to check with the Commission because they presented a very well report. Thank you very much for that and you have good news indeed with your report 121 airports that count for 79% of the SAF production and 2% which are available in 23 member states so in a way it shows it goes in the right direction but nevertheless we do not have enough SAF and the uptake is too slowly so we have to in a way be faster. This is why the initiative of revising the ReFuelEU Aviation is much appreciated. There's a discussion in in the Brussels bubble or in the aviation community on subsidizing in the next MFF the next seven years perhaps even to have a faster ramp up some sites outside European Union. I want to have an answer from the Commission how do they see this or is this perhaps something like a temporarily option which we could accept at least for a little time but of course for us the preferred option is to have the production of SAF in Europe. It's a question of resilience and and independence and a second in a way very interesting discussion is now on how we can tackle the the the question of to distortion of competition. We have of course a problem with with airlines from third countries they do not have the same rules and even additional levies or charges are being discussed in Brussels so I want to have the idea what is the Commission thinking about a levy on SAF in order to get a level playing field rebalanced. These are my two questions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Mr. Gieseke. Mrs. Paulus please.
Jutta Paulus
Yes, thank you very much. Thank you much very much for the implementation, also for the let's say encouraging figures which you have shown us. So I think we are on on a good pathway and I would very much like to keep that pathway, so not lowering our ambition when it comes to the revision of the Refuel Aviation. And as a suggestion, if we want to simplify things, we might get rid of derogations because that is simplification if you don't have to look for exemptions but if the rules are clear for everyone and everybody in the same fashion. If I recall correctly, you said that the allowances will probably be gone by 2030, taking the numbers which we already have.
If you would like, I would like to learn whether you can confirm that. And I would like to learn also, do you have disaggregated numbers? So how many allowances for SAF and how many for e-SAF? And coming to e-SAF, I would like to have true e-SAF because I have heard calls from let's say a certain market actors that e-HEFA should also be considered an e-SAF, so if at some point in the whole production chain electricity is used, then it should be considered e-SAF. And I believe we should really stick to the true RFNBOs and not get lost into something which cannot be scaled in the same way as we can scale true RFNBOs.
And a last warning, let's not rely on feedstock that is already today under pressure from many different sectors which all are relying on the same land basically, because we can increase a lot of things but we cannot increase the landmass on this planet. Thanks.
Thank you Mrs. Paulus. Mr. Ricci, you have the floor, sir.
Matteo Ricci
Thank you President, I will speak Italian. Grazie per questa opportunità. Vorrei fare, se possibile, due domande. La prima riguarda la riserva di quote SAF, se sono sufficienti, e la seconda come finanziare la produzione di e-SAF invece. E mi allaccio a quanto detto da Jean-Christophe poco fa, perché sto preparando l'opinione sugli ETS proprio per questa commissione.
Sulla prima domanda, sui SAF, dalla sua presentazione risulta che nel 2025 sono state assegnate 5,2 milioni di quote SAF, quattro volte più del 2024. Delle 20 milioni previste fino al 2030 ne restano 13,5 che al ritmo attuale potrebbero esaurirsi già nel 2027. La revisione dell'ETS aggiunge una riserva di 110 milioni di quote fino al 2040, disponibile dall'entrata in vigore della direttiva, quindi dal 2027. Si tratta però di circa 8 milioni di quote l'anno per 14 anni, con la copertura del differenziale di prezzo più basso. Nel frattempo la quota minima di SAF passa dal 2% di oggi al 6 nel 2030 e al 20 nel 2035.
Quindi chiedo alla Commissione quali previsioni avete sulla domanda di quote fino al 2040 e se ritenete che 110 milioni siano sufficienti per accompagnare l'aumento dei target minimi. La seconda domanda, come finanziare invece la produzione di e-SAF. Dal 2030 i fornitori dovranno garantire una quota minima di carburanti sintetici dell'1,2% che sale al 2 nel 2032 e il 5 nel 2035.
Oggi però gli impianti in Europa sono molto limitati. C'è un solo grande impianto dimostrativo e 50 progetti che aspettano ancora una decisione di investimento. La doppia asta pilota da 2,1 miliardi è finanziata da soli tre Stati membri e il meccanismo europeo è ancora in fase di studio. Chiedo quindi alla Commissione: quale ruolo avrà la nuova banca per la decarbonizzazione industriale nel finanziamento degli impianti SAF già nella prima fase del 2028? E se non si debbano prevedere quote ETS dedicate a questi progetti, per esempio trasferendo alla banca una parte della riserva per il SAF, così da finanziare la produzione e non solo l'uso.
Infine, come garantirete la coerenza tra la revisione dell'ETS ora in negoziazione e la revisione del ReFuelEU prevista per la seconda metà del 2027? Grazie.
Thank you, Mr. Ricci. Mr. Larraz, you have the floor, sir.
Borja Giménez Larraz
Muchas gracias, presidenta. También una pregunta en relación al e-SAF. La última evaluación de la EASA suscita serias preocupaciones sobre la disponibilidad de los combustibles sintéticos para aviación necesarios para cumplir el subobjetivo de 2030, ya que una parte significativa de los volúmenes previstos sigue dependiendo de proyectos que aún no han alcanzado la decisión final de inversión. A la luz de estas conclusiones, mi pregunta es: ¿podría la Comisión aclarar cuándo tiene previsto evaluar si se dispondrá de volúmenes suficientes de e-SAF a escala comercial para cumplir las obligaciones del 2030? Y en caso de que dichos volúmenes no se materialicen, si consideraría ajustar el calendario de aplicación de este submandato.
Gracias.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much. Now I will give the floor to Mr. Cornelis to reply and conclude the debate. You have the floor, sir. Thank you.
Filip CORNELIS
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. A lot of very valid points that we are also taking on board in our own evaluation, of course. And I will try to group it maybe a little bit. A big question that several of you brought forward is the question of future investment and the perception of long-term certainty in the investment community. This is of course critical.
We see today that on the biofuels front there is more than enough production for today's mandate. So we see the mandates are working and they have sufficient credibility for those investments to take place and uplifts to happen. We're also rather confident looking at the pipeline of investment projects, which by the way are available in an annex to the EASA report, to your question, including the ones that haven't yet been finally implemented. So we see there with rather confidence that on the biofuel side there will be enough production well into the next decade. It's not so clear on the side of synthetic SAF.
And those 50 projects that I mentioned are in this domain. They are spread around the EU. They are not particularly financed by the EU. But of course the double auction, double-sided auction that is being put in place by Germany and two other Member States is targeting that part of the industry. What indeed is critical in this domain is the credibility of our ambition, that we will not remove or reduce the mandates in the future.
So from the Commission side we have been very clear already in Sustainable Transport Investment Plan and at every occasion we can, we will repeat that we stand by the ambition.
We can see the mandate is the right thing to do and is working. And we will not reduce our ambition, and that will not be in our proposal next year. Of course, afterwards it goes to the legislator. So I would say your opinion and the way you communicate your commitment to the ambition level is just as important as the Commission's commitment. So if the Parliament finds a way to reaffirm its commitment to the ambition level of the SAF regulation and the need to decarbonize aviation, I think that will be a very important signal also to the market.
We think also at the Member State side there's a very strong support for SAF policy, unlike perhaps in other domains. The eSAF coalition is a proof of this. We have eight Member States who are not only committing to SAF, but to synthetic SAF, which is the holy grail of SAF. And there are many other Member States who are very firmly supportive of the current ambition that we have in SAF. So I think if the legislator can communicate this same commitment, it will help the market to take the right decisions.
On the support to SAF, to bridge indeed what is still a considerable price gap, we have, I gave you the figures, so in '24, 100 million euros worth of SAF allowances were dispersed. In '25, 430 million. So we have in the current ETS directive about 1.5 billion euros worth of allowances available. So I think we can all work out for ourselves, if we continue at the rate of 430 million per year, we will run out of SAF allowances in the next years, in '27, max beginning '28. That's why the Commission's proposal for the revision of the ETS directive is very important for our SAF policy on this aspect of making available additional SAF allowances.
And obviously it is in the hands of the Parliament right now to determine the amounts and the conditions for that support. I want to mention that in the Commission's proposal we have included a quite strong preference for production in the EU. So again, for you to consider how this functions, but indeed it has always been our ambition and it goes also towards our energy security. Even the military talk to us about having SAF production and eSAF production in the EU. So this is definitely an adjacent policy objective.
On the question of levies and a fair and equal level playing field, we will review as part of the report and the review of the ReFuelEU regulation, the question of a levy or some other mechanism to restore or protect the level playing field will be reviewed. So we will be able to communicate on this when we come to our proposal next year. Today is a bit too early. Then I think those were actually the main points. Also regarding support, so the Industrial Decarbonisation Bank was mentioned.
Also this is part of the ETS proposal of the Commission. So I would say as legislator for this committee to see what they want to do with this. The book and claim study from EASA is another question that came.
This will be ready in the coming months. And so we can, as I said before, also plan a presentation should you be interested in the outcome. And I think those were the main points, Madam Chair. If I forgot something, I'm happy to come back to it.
Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
Thank you very much, Mr. Cornelis. Now, dear colleagues, we have come to the end of our meeting. Please note our next committee meeting will take place in Strasbourg, 5th October at 19:30. And many thanks to all participants, interpreters, ushers, technicians, and the Interactio team. Thank you very much.
I wish you all a very nice evening.