Spain’s coalition government has approved new housing measures following protests over the country’s housing crisis, sparked by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her home in Madrid last week.
Ministers met on Tuesday to discuss the proposals, which include a ban on evictions until 2030.
Announcing the measures, Health Minister Mónica García said they would bring relief to more than five million people – but opposition politician Míriam Nogueras said the agreement left “small landlords out in the cold”.
The proposals – which have been presented in the form of two decrees – come into effect immediately, but must be approved by Congress within a month, although the government hopes to hold the vote as soon as this Friday.
Pedro Sánchez’s leftist coalition government lacks a majority in parliament and has struggled to get right-leaning parties to approve previous decrees.
In April, a decree seeking to roll over rental contracts was blocked by right-leaning parties.
García, of the Sumar alliance, said other measures agreed upon on Tuesday included the rolling over of contracts until 2028; stricter regulation of short-term and room rentals; and banning the purchase of housing by investment firms.
“It is time to intervene in the speculative housing market and start striking a balance between ordinary citizens and vulture funds,” García said.
Referencing the protests, she added: “Thanks to the mobilisations and the encampments. Without you, this would not have been possible.”
But Nogueras, spokeswoman for the centre-right Catalan nationalists of Junts party, said: “We all agreed that evictions – where the property is owned by a fund, a vulture fund, run by someone managing millions of euros – obviously need to be stopped.
“Lumping together in this category those who have invested their savings in a flat, a restaurant or a property – putting them all in the same basket – is a mistake,” she told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
The minority government, which is made up of the Sánchez’s ruling Socialists and junior partner the Sumar alliance, has 30 days from the decrees’ publication to reach an agreement in parliament.
Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez urged political parties to support the decrees after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal last week.
“Congress has the opportunity to tell Maricarmen that her suffering was worth it… and that many people will benefit from her battle”, she said.
But Valeria Racu, a spokeswoman for the Madrid Tenants’ Union, said the battle had “only just begun”, and called for more protests across Spain next weekend.
“We all have our eyes on the text, on the small print, to make sure this is the Maricarmen decree,” added Alicia del Río, another spokeswoman for the organisation.
The two decrees approved by the cabinet contain enough to at least suggest that the government has been listening carefully to the demands of the activists who have been protesting in Madrid, Barcelona and elsewhere in recent days.
The temporary ban on evictions, the rolling over of rental contracts and the ban on investment firms – or “vulture funds” as the government has termed them – buying property are all the kinds of policies that have been discussed by housing activists in recent days.
Pablo Bustinduy, minister of social rights, described the measures approved by the cabinet as “a first step towards the economic and social transformation of the country”.
Bustinduy and his Sumar alliance had entered the negotiations with Sánchez’s Socialists determined to take a stand on this issue, which is one they feel strongly about.
Sumar’s tough stance was a major reason why talks between the coalition partners on the decrees went down to the wire ahead of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.
While the relatively bold new measures may please many on the left, they have raised the hackles of the Junts, whose support is again likely to be needed to approve them.
Junts and other parties on the right tend to be reluctant to intervene in the housing market, particularly if it means tipping the balance of the law in favour of tenants and against landlords, many of who are their natural electorate.
The question now is whether the social momentum generated by the Maricarmen Abascal case will override such reservations and manage to ensure this package of measures becomes law.
Ahead of the government’s announcement on Tuesday, the lawyer for Abascal, who has become a symbol of Spain’s housing crisis, said she would be allowed to return to her home after reaching a deal with the company that owns it on Monday.
Abascal, who was admitted to hospital after being forcibly removed from the apartment on a stretcher, was unable to attend the meeting and is yet to sign the deal.
Abascal’s father first rented the flat in 1956 and she had continued to live in it after her parents died, with a cap on the rent, until investment company Urbagestión bought the property in 2018.
It raised the monthly rent to more than her monthly pension, leaving her unable to pay it.
Abascal’s case is not unique.
In the north-eastern city of Zaragoza, another woman’s eviction was temporarily suspended on Tuesday, the European Pressphoto Agency reported.
