On 27 March, YMCA Europe’s representative, Dragoș Tarța, took part in the Youth Policy Dialogue on Housing at the Berlaymont building in Brussels, engaging directly with European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jørgensen and representatives of the European Commission’s Housing Task Force.
The dialogue brought together young people from across Europe to discuss the rapidly worsening housing situation, with a particular focus on affordability, energy poverty, and the specific vulnerabilities faced by young people. Throughout the day, participants worked to refine concrete policy messages, ensuring that youth perspectives would be clearly voiced in the high‑level roundtable with the Commissioner.
In this context, Dragoș contributed to discussions on housing affordability and called for robust legal frameworks that protect and strengthen young people’s access to adequate, secure, and affordable housing.
His interventions highlighted the need for stronger tenant safeguards, better recognition of youth as a distinct group in housing and energy policy, and meaningful youth participation in governance processes at all levels.
The dialogue also provided an important opportunity to engage with ongoing EU initiatives such as the European Affordable Housing Plan, the proposed Affordable Housing Act, the European Housing Alliance, as well as to exchange directly with members of the Housing Task Force on how youth recommendations can be integrated into these processes.
By linking youth‑driven proposals with current legislative and policy developments, the discussion helped identify concrete entry points for sustained youth involvement in the design, implementation, and monitoring of EU housing measures.
Recognising the crucial work that YMCA National Movements do on housing across Europe, the dialogue also served to bring their concrete experiences, good practices, and evidence from the national level into the EU conversation.
Their perspectives and lived realities formed the basis of the positions expressed during the meeting, ensuring that our contributions reflected the day‑to‑day challenges and solutions emerging from communities on the ground.
