Brussels, the bureaucratic beating heart of a union that prides itself on the 'social market economy,' has spent the last decade watching the 'market' portion of that phrase devour the 'social' part like a starved rat in a derelict cellar. For ten long years, house prices and rents across the EU have performed a vertical ascent that would make an Olympic gymnast weep, while the average European’s salary remains as stagnant as a drainage ditch in a drought. It is a remarkable achievement in collective policy failure, a masterclass in how to turn the basic biological necessity of shelter into a speculative asset class for people who find human suffering to be a tolerable side effect of a healthy portfolio. We have effectively told an entire generation that if they wanted a roof, they should have had the foresight to be born as a Real Estate Investment Trust.

The real news story tells us that this decade-long surge is 'straining household budgets' and 'deepening overcrowding.' This is the kind of sterile, bloodless language that only a think-tank could love. In reality, 'straining budgets' means that the modern European worker spends their entire morning working for their landlord and their entire afternoon working for the utility companies, leaving them approximately twenty minutes at the end of the day to contemplate why they bother existing at all. The EU, in its infinite wisdom, has watched as the 'European Dream' morphed from a continental peace project into a frantic search for a roommate who doesn’t steal your oat milk or leave their fingernail clippings in the sink.

We are witnessing the birth of Feudalism 2.0, but with better Wi-Fi and more anxiety. The 'overcrowding' mentioned in these reports is just a euphemism for the return of the Victorian tenement, rebranded for the TikTok age as 'co-living.' Politicians on the Left wring their hands and suggest rent controls that inevitably dry up supply like a salted slug, while the Right suggests that the solution is to simply build more 'luxury' glass towers that will remain 80% empty because they are being used as safety deposit boxes for international oligarchs. Neither side has the spine to admit that the system is functioning exactly as intended: to extract every last cent from the productive class and funnel it into the hands of the landed gentry and the banks who hold the deeds.

The report claims that these prices are 'reshaping living and career choices.' This is another delightful euphemism. 'Reshaping choices' means that a thirty-five-year-old engineer is currently living in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by Star Wars posters, because a studio apartment in any city with actual jobs costs more than a kidney on the black market. It means that the 'freedom of movement'—one of the four pillars of the EU—has become a cruel joke. Sure, you are free to move anywhere you want, provided you are comfortable living in a tent or under a bridge with a particularly nice view of the Danube. The mobility of labor is hindered by the fact that labor has nowhere to sleep once it arrives at its destination.

Furthermore, the psychological degradation of this crisis is being ignored in favor of spreadsheets. The sense of permanence, of belonging, of being a stakeholder in a society, is being systematically dismantled. When a person knows they are one rent hike away from being a nomad, they tend not to invest in their community. They don't plant gardens; they don't join local councils; they don't have children. Why would you bring a child into a world where their first bedroom will likely be a partitioned-off corner of a living room shared with three strangers who 'work in tech'? This is not a housing crisis; it is a demographic suicide note signed in the blood of the middle class and witnessed by a class of politicians too busy arguing over the curvature of bananas to notice their cities are becoming museums for the wealthy.

Europe likes to look down its nose at the rest of the world, citing its 'dignity' and 'quality of life.' Yet, the reality is a continent where the youth are being priced out of their own future by a combination of NIMBYism, corporate greed, and administrative paralysis. The solution, of course, will be another decade of 'monitoring' the situation, followed by a series of strongly worded memos and perhaps a commemorative stamp. Meanwhile, the residents of the EU can take comfort in the fact that while they may not be able to afford a home, they live in a union that is very concerned about the environmental impact of the cardboard box they are currently living in. It is a pathetic end for a civilization that used to build cathedrals, only to finish by being unable to build a two-bedroom flat.