Spain approves housing reforms after nationwide strike over costs

The Spanish parliament has passed measures to limit evictions and real estate speculation in an attempt to make housing more affordable, a day after a nationwide general strike over the country’s housing crisis.

Spain’s interim lower house of parliament ratified the housing measures on Thursday; however, their duration will depend on the outcome of a snap election scheduled later in November.

The leading opposition party, the conservative Popular Party, has said that it will repeal the measures of the left-wing government if it takes power, which polls indicate could happen.

Large demonstrations over unaffordable housing swept the country in September when televised images of the eviction of 87-year-old Maria del Carmen Abascal, known as Maricarmen, from her home, shocked many Spaniards.

Protest camps sprang up in several cities, the largest in Madrid’s emblematic Puerta del Sol square. Maricarmen’s subsequent death in October caused national uproar, prompting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority government to rush to present two decrees.

Sanchez called the general election, which had been scheduled for 2027, in response to the parliament’s failure to pass the decrees that included greater protection for tenants against evictions and the automatic renewal of tenant contracts.

The Popular Party and other conservative parties aligned to reject the measures, saying the laws would negatively affect the housing market, and proposed a building spree as the solution to the crisis.

On Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets in a 24-hour walkout over soaring rents and the high cost of living that the main unions called after the decrees were blocked.

Sanchez introduced another two decrees that were almost identical to the rejected ones. They were presented to a smaller parliamentary council on Thursday, giving the government a better chance of passing the laws.

The first decree passed in a 35–34 vote and includes a measure extending protections against evictions for tenants deemed by social services to be in a precarious financial or social position, as long as regional authorities cannot offer them an alternative residence.

Another measure attempted to reduce real estate speculation by stopping any company involved in the real estate market from buying properties for less than 70 percent of their value.

However, it was rejected 34-35 after the centre-right Basque party voted with the right-wing bloc after having supported the other decree, on grounds that the measure could lead homeowners to withdraw their properties from the rental market, triggering a drop in supply and even higher prices.