Spain faces housing protests in more than 50 cities after parliament rejects tenant protections
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Protesters are expected to march in more than 50 Spanish cities on Saturday, a day after parliament voted against two government decrees intended to strengthen tenant protections.
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The tenants’ union, which is coordinating the protests, has called for demonstrations. “There is an irreparable gap between what the people want and what the parties vote for,” he said in a statement.
In Madrid, protesters are expected to depart from several points in the city at midday and converge on the central Plaza de Cibeles. Activists have already been camping for about a week at Puerta del Sol, one of the capital’s main tourist spots.
Anger was sparked by the expulsion of Maricarmen Abascal, 87, carried on a stretcher from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for around seven decades. Housing campaigners claim an investment company had bought the property and was seeking to increase its rent by 275 per cent. After the backlash, the new owners agreed to let her return to low rent.
Calls for general elections
The government developed its measures in response to the nationwide protests that followed. The package rejected Friday would have automatically renewed rental contracts when they expire and restricted evictions of vulnerable tenants. He also goes after vulture funds, investment companies that buy properties at low prices in an attempt to get higher returns.
These decrees required the votes of the Catalan separatist Junts party, which opposed them on the grounds that they lacked rigor.
This defeat constitutes a new setback for socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. This has reignited doubts about the ability of his minority government to hold out until the next general election scheduled for 2027.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), the main opposition, urged Sánchez after the vote to “call elections as soon as possible.” After eight years in power, he said, the prime minister had support “neither from the streets nor from Parliament”. Recent opinion polls generally place the PP ahead of the Socialists.
Housing has been a major concern for Spaniards for years, with supply falling short of demand and costs skyrocketing, as is the case elsewhere in the European Union. Average rents have nearly doubled over the past decade and asking prices for homes have increased by about 90 percent, according to real estate site Idealista.
Additional sources • AFP
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