Spain’s housing problem used as political tool ahead of elections

Spain’s two main parties, the ruling centre-left PSOE (S&D) and the centre-right Popular Party (PP/EPP) are both using the housing crisis as a way to gain votes ahead of elections set for later this year.

The first to start the conversation last week was Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who announced the approval in the Council of Ministers of a new Housing Law to help young people with less purchasing power to rent or buy a home at affordable prices.

In Sánchez’s words, the aim is to make housing – a “huge problem” (“un problemón”) for young people – a true constitutional right and not simply a market product to favour big tenants.

Housing in Spain is indeed a “problemón”: In big cities such as Madrid or Barcelona, where many landlords ask for monthly rents of €1,000 (or more) for small studios or tiny flats. Meanwhile, due to the increase in the Euribor rate (which fixes the interest on mortgage debts), many young single people or couples cannot easily access mortgages.

To do so, they spend well over 30% of their salaries on rent, which is well above the recommended “safe debt limit”, according to many experts.

The situation is dramatic for many: the current emancipation age in Spain, 29.9 years old, is three years higher than the EU average, and prospects are bleak as the percentage of people under 30 living with their parents will reach 47.5% by 2030, a recent report by NGO Ayuda en Acción revealed.

Nor are Spain’s figures on youth unemployment very positive: the Iberian country holds the sad record for the highest youth unemployment, 29.3 %, according to Eurostat data from 2022. And Spain is the OECD country with the highest overall unemployment rate: 12.8% (compared with a 6% EU average).

The conversation was continued by the President of the PP,  Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who on Tuesday criticised the new law approved by the PSOE and its coalition ally, Unidas Podemos (European Left), and instead proposed a “State Pact” on housing, with specific measures to boost the emancipation of young people.

Adding fuel to the fire, the Government’s spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, responded that “there is one indisputable fact: the PP’s housing policies are failed policies”.

PSOE’s counterattack was forceful: on Wednesday, Sánchez announced that Spain’s progressive executive would finance the construction of 43,000 new homes for rent at affordable prices, whether newly built or refurbished, which will be added to the 50,000 announced on Tuesday.

In a speech before parliament, Sánchez detailed that these new homes will be financed through a new public aid line of €4 billion from the EU Next Generation Funds.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)

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