The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has decided to maintain its vote in favor to save the so-called Maricarmen decree despite the fact that one of the biggest drops in rental supply after the provisional approval of the new regulations has occurred precisely in the Basque capitals. «We have already spoken about the decrees and we maintain the same position. We will vote yes to the first decree because it includes measures that are necessary," a spokesperson for the Basque parliamentary group in Madrid told this newspaper. The validation is scheduled for next day the 12th.
According to data from the specialized portal Idealista, only in the first month since the approval in the Council of Ministers of the new regulations linked to the eviction of the deceased elderly woman Maricarmen Abascal, Vitoria is in the leading group of Spanish cities in which the regulation has caused the greatest damage. On the real estate portal they maintain that "the supply of rental homes in Idealista has plummeted by 27% since the approval of the first housing decrees on September 29, later repealed by the majority of the Congress of Deputies."
In San Sebastián, 24% of rental advertisements have been removed in the last month and in Bilbao 21%, all of them above the national average, which is already high at 19%. As for Pamplona, the Navarrese capital in which the PNV also aspires to have influence, the drop in supply is 30%, according to Idealista.
After Junts slammed the door, the basis of both decrees was later recovered by Pedro Sánchez after calling early elections and taking advantage of the fact that Carles Puigdemont's party is no longer necessary in the Permanent Deputation, a parliamentary format more controlled by the Government. The effect of the approval of the two decrees on October 6, according to Idealista, is decisive for the withdrawal of tens of thousands of rental apartments throughout Spain in recent weeks, as El MUNDO published this Friday.
In the Permanent Deputation, the PSOE and the partners to its left need the decisive support of the PNV which, despite declaring greater sensitivity towards the owners, is willing to save the first decree.
The PNV disagrees with Junts on the detrimental effect of the first decree on the rental offer and maintains that the problem is in the second of the decrees, the one sponsored by Sumar. "In the first there are necessary measures such as the regulation of seasonal rentals, which was one of the black holes of the Housing Law of 2023, the limitations on the activity of the vulture funds that we managed to incorporate and the protection of both vulnerable people and small owners of two or fewer homes," assures the aforementioned official source.
The formation chaired by Aitor Esteban, an important supporter of the Government in this legislature, does maintain its rejection of the second decree, because "it represents an attack on the small owner and we believe that it is what is really counterproductive and reduces the supply of rental housing on the market."
However, real estate experts consulted assure that the damage to the offer is being caused by the first decree, because with respect to the second, which includes 12-month compensation from the owners to the tenants, it was taken for granted from the first moment that it will not go ahead. "In the case of the Basque Country, what the royal decrees do is deepen the crisis, because they already have the most interventionist regulation in rentals along with Catalonia," they say.
The PNV Government, which acts in coalition with the Basque socialists, applies the Housing Law in stressed areas, although it does not go as far as EH Bildu, which lost a vote this Thursday in the Basque Parliament in favor of declaring the entire autonomous community stressed. The official line of the PNV is that it should not intervene in the entire territory, but rather put rent caps selectively in a way "based on the agreement and the joint development with the municipalities of action plans that allow overcoming the situation of tension with concrete measures to expand the supply of affordable housing."
