EU plans to help cities curb tourist rentals

The European Union is set to lay out rules helping European cities curb short-term rentals such as Airbnb in a bid to tackle rising house prices, according to plans seen by AFP on Friday. The proposal arrives as Florence, like Venice and Rome, has watched its historic centre hollow out under the weight of holiday lets, with residents pushed to the periphery and rents climbing beyond the reach of local wages.

The EU plan would give cities a legal framework to impose limits on platforms that have multiplied since the mid-2010s, when the short-let market turned the Tuscan capital into one of Europe's most tightly squeezed housing markets. According to the wire report, the rules are meant to address the pressure that platforms place on urban housing stock, a problem that has become acute in the region's smaller hill towns as well as its capital.

The EU's move follows years of local measures that have struggled against the scale of the phenomenon. Florence has experimented with restrictions on new short-term lets in the historic centre, and national rules have sought to cap the number of days a property can be rented out, but enforcement has been uneven and platforms have often found ways around the limits. The EU proposal, as reported by AFP and carried by The Local Italy, would create a more uniform legal basis for cities to act, potentially allowing them to require registration, impose caps or restrict rentals in designated zones.

For Tuscany, the stakes are particularly high. The region's economy depends heavily on tourism, and the short-let boom has brought revenue to property owners while contributing to a housing shortage that local administrators say is driving young families and essential workers out of city centres. Florence's centro storico, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has seen a steady decline in resident population over the past two decades, a trend that foreign observers have linked to the proliferation of holiday apartments.

The EU rules, if adopted, would not override national or local powers but would provide a common framework, making it harder for platforms to argue that individual cities lack the legal authority to act. The proposal is expected to be formalised in the coming months, with cities like Florence watching closely as a test case for whether European-level action can succeed where municipal efforts have only partially worked.

Reaction from the region has been cautious but interested, with administrators noting that any effective solution must balance the economic weight of tourism against the need for housing. The wire does not name specific Italian officials, but the general sentiment among Tuscan local governments has been that European backing would strengthen their hand in negotiations with platforms that operate across borders.