Political crisis in Spain after evictions and housing shortage

The political crisis in the housing issue was triggered a week ago when Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was evicted from his flat in Madrid. The Puerta del Sol square in the center of the city was filled with protesters and activists, who have camped there ever since. New polls show the housing shortage is the issue most worrying Spanish voters, and Pedro Sánchez promised to introduce two new laws to strengthen tenants' rights.

Maricarmen Abascal has returned to his rented apartment after an intervention by the mayor of Madrid. She has been given a new contract, where the rent does not exceed a third of her net income. But the political battle over the housing shortage rages on. Spain has plenty of land and one of Europe's largest construction sectors, but neither the right, 2011-2018, nor the left, since 2018, has succeeded in loosening the bureaucratic procedures that delay detailed plans and building permits.

Two conservative separatist parties, Basque PNV and Catalan Junts, have been the backbone of the socialist coalition in Congress for the past seven years. Sánchez's biggest concession to Junts is amnesty for the Catalan leaders who declared independence in the fall of 2017. Most of those leaders then served prison terms, but their leader Carles Puigdemont fled to Belgium and leads the Junts party from there. Congress has granted Puigdemont amnesty and the right to return to Spain without penalty, but the Supreme Court has blocked the law.

Both Junts and PNV oppose one of the proposed rent laws, which dramatically favors tenants over their landlords. Among other things, the landlord who does not agree to extend the contract when it expires must compensate the tenant with twelve months' rent. Most rental apartments in the Basque Country and Catalonia are owned by private individuals, not large corporations, and PNV and Junts argue that such drastic changes will reduce supply and exacerbate housing shortages.