Soaring rents, record homelessness, and overcrowding: from the UK to Spain, housing crises have led to an increase in squatting. Occupying empty buildings has become a form of survival, as migrants and low-income families are priced out of the formal housing market in cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Berlin.

Portugal, however, has approved tougher laws on squatters, allowing them to be evicted within 48 hours and doubling prison sentences up to five years. The move, driven by right-wing parties, who frame it as a defence of private property, taps into a wider European problem.While Portugal and Spain move towards fast-track evictions, the Netherlands offers a different path, shaped by its long squatting history. Though squatting only became a criminal offence in 2010, Amsterdam has focused on reducing vacancy by fining owners of empty homes, supporting reuse, and even threatening forced sales in extreme cases, aiming to address the root problem: the housing crisis.