Cost-of-living crisis undermining rights across Europe: EU agency

TLE Desk: Rising living costs and housing pressures are increasingly undermining fundamental rights across Europe, with growing numbers of people unable to afford housing and facing the risk of homelessness, according to a new report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), reports AFP.

The Vienna-based agency said house prices across the European Union increased by 53 percent between 2015 and 2024, while rents rose by nearly 17 percent during the same period, citing data from Eurostat.

FRA Director Sirpa Rautio warned that soaring housing costs were having a direct impact on people’s access to basic rights.

“Soaring costs affect many individuals and families, as more and more people cannot afford their homes and risk becoming homeless,” Rautio said in the agency’s annual report.

“Young people and vulnerable groups face hardships that undermine their access to the basic right to adequate housing and many remain unprotected against eviction,” she added.

The report indicated that homelessness is on the rise across the bloc. According to the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (Feantsa), nearly 1.3 million people were homeless in the EU in 2025.

Beyond economic pressures, the FRA said the European Union is facing growing challenges in safeguarding fundamental rights amid geopolitical instability and ongoing conflicts.

“The unpredictable international environment and ongoing wars are having an impact here at home — not least on people’s sense of safety and wellbeing,” Rautio said.

The report also highlighted concerns over the spread of harmful online content, noting that more than one in three people in the EU had encountered material on the internet that they considered harmful.

According to the agency, efforts to enforce EU digital regulations have faced difficulties, particularly in holding major technology platforms accountable.

The FRA further identified significant employment-related challenges affecting non-EU workers, including discrimination, labour exploitation and overqualification, despite persistent labour shortages across the bloc.

The report covers all 27 European Union member states as well as Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.