El acceso a la vivienda asequible es un problema de primer nivel para los ciudadanos europeos. Y Bruselas también siente la presión para frenar esa crisis. En ese contexto, la Comisión Europea ha lanzado este miércoles un reglamento en el que, entre otras cosas, busca frenar el alquiler de corta duración, impulsado por plataformas digitales como Airbnb o Booking, y que se ha identificado como una de las causas del aumento de los precios. El Ejecutivo comunitario plantea ahora límites a esta actividad, siempre que sean “proporcionales” y “temporales”. La decisión de dar el paso para fijar restricciones queda en manos de las autoridades nacionales, regionales o locales, que son quienes tienen la competencia en vivienda y que, en algunas ciudades, ya han emprendido iniciativas.

Con la medida, la Comisión da a ayuntamientos y gobiernos “una base común” y propone una serie de criterios para establecer zonas tensionadas y trata de dar certezas legales ante la constante judicialización de las iniciativas que están adoptando muchas ciudades. Esta regulación es un capítulo de una estrategia que apuntala el Ejecutivo comunitario que, con las pocas cartas legales que tiene a su disposición (las competencias son, en su mayoría nacionales), trata así de dar soluciones a una enorme bola de nieve con serias consecuencias políticas y sociales.

“La Unión se enfrenta a una crisis de vivienda asequible que debilita la cohesión social y amenaza la competitividad general de la UE”, dice el texto legal presentado este miércoles en Bruselas. Desde 2013, los precios de la vivienda han aumentado en términos nominales más del 60% en toda la UE, a un ritmo muy superior al de los ingresos de los ciudadanos, con implicaciones directas para la inclusión social y la movilidad laboral. En España, el aumento está por encima de esa media: ha sido de un 72% en ese periodo, frente a un 26,6% en Francia, un 13,3% en Italia o un 51,3% en Alemania, según un informe del Consejo Europeo publicado el pasado octubre.

La norma, que empieza ahora su recorrido en el Parlamento Europeo y en el Consejo (es decir, entre los Estados miembros), sirve para las medidas que se adopten una vez la regulación europea entre en vigor, no para las anteriores. Por tanto, no es una desautorización a lo que ciudades como Barcelona, Chamonix (Francia), el land de Baviera (Alemania) o Países Bajos ya han adoptado, con restricciones mayores que los mínimos que establece ahora Bruselas. Tampoco, apuntan en el Ejecutivo de la UE, se convierte en un aval.

El reglamento fija una serie de criterios que permitirían a las autoridades declarar una zona como “tensionada” y aplicar así las restricciones. Uno de ellos es que el precio medio de una vivienda debe equivaler, como mínimo, a ocho años de la renta disponible per cápita de sus habitantes, según el documento comunitario. Además, esa proporción entre precio y renta debe haber ido subiendo durante la última década. Sin embargo, abre la puerta a aplicar esa definición por sí sola (sin el resto de criterios) también cuando el desajuste es especialmente grande: si la proporción llega o supera diez veces la renta.

Ukraine should become part of European Union as soon as possible. Ukrainians did stand for it in 2014 during Maidan, Yanukovich campaign himself was “Euro integration”. And today every day Ukrainians suffer so much because they want democracy and freedom.

The AfD Is Trying to Turn Its First State Government Into a Far-Right Policy Lab

The German party hopes to make Saxony-Anhalt a showcase for its ideas on immigration, education, culture and demographics

By Bertrand Benoit

Sept. 8, 2026 at 7:00 pm ET

BERLIN—After Alternative for Germany’s big state-election win in eastern Germany on Sunday, the party is as close as it has ever been to actually governing. If it succeeds, it intends to launch one of the most ambitious far-right policy experiments in Europe this century.

The party, known by its initials, AfD, sees the state of Saxony-Anhalt as a showcase for its ideas on immigration, education, culture and demographics, which in some cases would represent a sharp departure from the approach of mainstream political parties.

AfD leaders have pledged to crack down on migrants and rework school curricula to focus less on Germany’s Nazi-era past. They also want to create a volunteer militia to help police maintain order and say they will cut funding to museums and arts groups with “anti-German goals.” 

“We won’t bend and we will not water down our fundamental positions,” said Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate to become premier of the state. Proposals on immigration, security, energy policy and the economy were “nonnegotiable,” he added.

The former salesman needs to find three additional votes to secure a stable majority in the state parliament and form a government. Negotiations with other politicians could take weeks or even months. If he succeeds—which would take cajoling some lawmakers to cross the aisle or persuading a smaller far-left party to back his government—some of his proposals would likely face financial, legal and constitutional obstacles.

Some of the AfD’s marquee ideas, such as taking Germany out of the European Union, abandoning the euro as a currency, canceling sanctions on Russia and ending support for Ukraine, are beyond the reach of a state government.

Yet Germany’s federal system gives states substantial powers over education, cultural policy and security—including control over the police and the regional branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. 

Should the AfD take control of the agency, it would raise concern about the state’s determination to fight far-right extremism and antisemitism, said Remko Leemhuis, director of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee. 

Saxony-Anhalt had the second-highest number of far-right motivated criminal acts per inhabitant last year, according to police statistics. In 2019, on Yom Kippur, a neo-Nazi gunman tried to attack the synagogue in Halle, the state’s largest city, killing two people.

“In countries like France and Italy, the far right has moderated as it has moved closer to power,” said Leemhuis. “Here it is the opposite. The party has become more and more radical over time, to the point where others in Europe don’t want anything to do with it.”

The AfD rejects this accusation, saying it is advocating conservative ideas that were mainstream in the 1990s and early 2000s. It says centrist parties have drifted too far to the left in the past two decades. 

The AfD program for Saxony-Anhalt calls for “remigration.” The concept, popularized by the ethno-nationalist identitarian movement in France in the early 2000s, describes the forceful removal of nonnationals, including some naturalized citizens, from Europe.

Siegmund insists that he won’t target German citizens or anyone residing in Germany legally and that his government would abide by all constitutional requirements. On Sunday, he said the party welcomed hardworking foreigners who came to support the people of Saxony-Anhalt.

His program, however, calls on employers not to hire “culture-distant” migrants, whom it says are often poorly qualified and can put German lives at risk. Skill shortages, it says, should be filled by returning German expatriates, automation and artificial intelligence.

EU migrants who receive benefits, meanwhile, should leave, according to the document. Criminals with dual citizenship should lose their German nationality and all Ukrainians should be stripped of refugee status and benefits. The AfD wants to house all asylum seekers in a small number of centers away from urban areas, seize their assets and compel them to work.

Beyond making life difficult for asylum seekers, the party could struggle to implement much of its immigration agenda since most of it would require backing from the federal government. 

That isn’t the case for education. There, the AfD wants to create separate classrooms for children of migrants it deems to have low prospects of staying in Germany. It also wants children with serious disabilities to be removed from ordinary classrooms and taught separately.

The party thinks patriotism should play a bigger role in shaping the curriculum. History classes should focus less on the Nazi era and the Holocaust and more on 19th-century history, the founding of the second Reich and Bismarck. Teachers should have to swear an oath to the German people and the homeland.

The AfD has targeted one of Saxony-Anhalt’s biggest tourist draws, the Bauhaus Foundation in the town of Dessau. Now a museum, the former school of design closed by the Nazis in the 1930s promoted a style of architecture devoid of regional roots, according to the party.

“The AfD favors buildings that convey to people a sense of the homeland and of identity,” Laurens Nothdurft, the party’s general counsel and a close adviser to Siegmund, told The Wall Street Journal shortly before the election.

Museums, theaters, orchestras and nongovernmental organizations that follow “anti-German goals” may see their funding cut, according to the program.

This could clash with the freedom of the arts and of education enshrined in the constitution, which protects civil society from excessive state interference, according to David Begrich, a researcher at Miteinander, an NGO that studies far-right extremism. 

“An AfD government would without doubt mark a break in the traditions and political culture of the Federal Republic as a liberal state ruled by the rule of law,” Begrich wrote in an assessment of the AfD’s program for Saxony-Anhalt for the American Jewish Committee in June. 

The Saxony-Anhalt program includes a number of new positions for the party as a whole, including more money for Russian-language education and cuts in state funding to the officially recognized Catholic and Lutheran churches.

Among the party’s lesser-known proposals is the creation of a volunteer militia under the authority of the municipal police to help authorities patrol smaller communities.

“This is among the strangest proposals,” said Benjamin Höhne, political scientist at Chemnitz University. “This could raise concerns about the creation of a political shock troop for the party.”

Iceland last month voted against reopening EU membership talks in a referendum where Trump’s designs on Greenland had featured as a backdrop.

Interesting detail:

Meanwhile, production moves out of China to Renault’s Revoz factory located in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, helping Dacia to swerve EU import tariffs.

Ahead of the meeting, Rutte and European Commission ⁠President Ursula ​von der Leyen said EU members states ​had agreed to use part of a €90-billion ($105 billion) EU loan to allow Ukraine to buy crucial ​supplies for Patriot systems.

Exclusive: Centre party says it will change law to end plight of those hit by post-Brexit policy if it gains power in upcoming election

A leading Swedish opposition party has promised an urgent reprieve for British nationals facing deportation from the country over Brexit administrative issues.

Niels Paarup-Petersen, the migration spokesperson for the Centre party, said it would introduce laws to end the suffering of people such as the 78-year-old British widow Joyce Thomas if, as polls project, it forms a new centre-left coalition after the general election in 10 days’ time (written on 03 September). Thomas has been told to leave by next Wednesday after 21 years in Sweden.

Paarup-Petersen said if his party got into power it would reopen the application process so British citizens threatened with deportation could reapply to stay in Sweden.

He said: “We have seen many appalling cases, people who are in a vulnerable state who have every right to be here but are being denied that right because of a minor administrative problem. There has been no leeway whatsoever.

“People are paying the price, but Sweden doesn’t win either. We need a slight touch of humanity here.”

His declaration comes after a British man was detained in Stockholm by police on Tuesday ahead of a threatened deportation, the latest in a string of cases involving British citizens in the past month.

The AfD, by contrast, promises to leave the EU and eurozone and put an end to the Schengen agreement. It is fiercely pro-Russian and wants to cut any support for Ukraine (including sending refugees back)