In the Netherlands, a new housing valuation system (WWS) will apply from 2024 to rental properties with a maximum rent of €1,100. This is the core of the proposal by Dutch Housing Minister De Jonge to regulate mid-market rents, which he presented on December 9, 2022. Housing Europe's member, AEDES has welcomed the proposal as "in the current housing shortage, it is necessary that we protect tenants against excessive rents" its chairman, says Martin van Rijn said. Martijn Eskinasi, a policy research manager from the Directorate-General of Housing and Construction in the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations in the Netherlands explains more.

In November, our member, the Co-operative Housing Federation of Norway (NBBL) met Housing Europe's staff in Brussels for a face-to-face exchange from which we learnt about what is at stake for cooperatives in the north while we explained how EU legislation is directly impacting the EEA area.

According to Eurostat statistics, in 2020, buildings represent nearly 40% and households, alone, 27% of the total energy consumption in the EU. It is therefore clear that in a technologically advanced environment and with finite energy resources, it is of paramount importance to make use of the plethora of data and evolved techniques for the development and evolution of building sector energy efficiency strategies. Elissaios Sarmas, a PhD candidate at the Energy Policy Unit of the National Technical University of Athens is explaining how MATRYCS, the EU-funded project that Housing Europe is part of is doing this in practice.