Overview
- The forcible, televised eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal triggered large protests and multi-day encampments in Madrid and other cities and made housing reform urgent in public debate.
- The government approved two emergency decrees that would ban evictions of vulnerable tenants, tighten short-term rental rules, offer tax incentives for renting and construction, and propose automatic lease renewals.
- Junts, a Catalan kingmaker party, publicly said it will vote against the decrees, a move that leaves the minority Socialist-led government short of the votes needed in Spain’s fragmented 350-seat Parliament.
- Urbagestión, the company that carried out Abascal’s eviction, has agreed under pressure to let her return to the apartment and Abascal is currently in hospital after being removed on a stretcher.
- If Congress does not ratify the decrees they will lapse, protesters plan to keep pressure on lawmakers, and the episode highlights Spain’s deeper shortage of affordable rental housing and low public rental stock.