Decrees require congressional approval as Puerta del Sol protests continue
Spain’s Socialist Workers’ Party-led coalition cabinet approved the housing package on Tuesday after days of protests that began when Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was carried out of her Madrid apartment on a stretcher earlier this month. The cabinet’s two decrees must still pass Congress, where the coalition lacks a majority, and the government has asked for a special parliamentary session on Friday to push them through.
The main decree includes extending restrictions on evictions of vulnerable tenants through 2030, regulating temporary lettings and lettings by room, banning so-called vulture funds from buying property until 2028, and adding a two-year extension on current rental agreements that are due to expire at the end of 2028. A separate decree reached a separate agreement on the automatic renewal of rental agreements.
The first decree is believed to have the support of the conservative Catalan and Basque parties, which had previously opposed the government’s housing overhauls. Those parties are likely to vote down the second decree.
Hundreds of protesters remained camped in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol on Tuesday to protest Abascal’s removal. The demonstrators are demanding legal reforms including a rent freeze and automatic renewal of leases without abusive rent hikes.
Urbagestión, the company whose eviction of Abascal forced the housing crisis to the top of the political agenda, said Abascal can return to her apartment at a rent that will not exceed 30 percent of her income. On Tuesday, she accepted the offer and will pay €533 — about £457 — per month, less than a third of the original demand of €1,650 that had led to her eviction.
Health Minister Mónica García celebrated the cabinet’s decision. “We’ve achieved something that even a month ago was unthinkable,” she said, adding: “It’s time to intervene in the speculative housing market and begin to restore the balance between citizens and vulture funds.”
The Tenants’ Union, which has been the driving force behind the demand for changes to the housing law as well as the Puerta del Sol occupation, said it needed to read the small print but opposed the policy of dividing the issue into separate decrees.
“It’s a tactic of tearing something into shreds so that all that’s left are scraps,” said Alicia Del Río, a union spokesperson in Madrid. “The union demands the implementation of the Maricarmen decree in its entirety,” she said, referring to a set of changes drawn up by the union. “They have to accept what people are demanding.”
The government has 30 days from the decree’s publication to reach a consensus with allies in Congress. Junts, the Catalan pro-independence party whose support the package needs to pass, said Tuesday it remained far from agreement and wanted protection for small landlords, who make up the vast majority of property owners in Spain.
“Owning two properties isn’t the same as owning entire buildings,” said Míriam Nogueras, Junts’ spokesperson in Congress. “But here they’re not making any distinction between the two.”
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s Party, dismissed the proposals. “The government has created a problem that didn’t exist when it took office,” he said. “A problem that was created over eight years can’t be solved in five minutes.”
Ada Colau, a housing activist and former Barcelona mayor, recently revealed she had to move out of her rented apartment after 15 years because the rent became impossible to pay on a single income after she separated from her husband. Colau, who renounced most of her mayoral salary during her eight years in office, said the market was geared toward dual incomes, whether couples or people sharing, and that she had gone to live with a relative.