Spain housing decree: Podemos demands end to holiday lets

People are camping at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol for the right to housing. Podemos leader Ione Belarra says Spain’s planned housing decree falls far short of what they want. Speaking at the Spanish Congress on 29 September 2026, she criticises the government’s response to protests that followed the eviction of Maricarmen, an elderly woman who had lived in her Madrid home for decades.

Belarra says the draft offers no fundamental change. It includes tax breaks for landlords, she says, but no move to expropriate properties held by investment funds or end holiday lets. She also says it fails to clarify how open-ended rental agreements would work.

Belarra has not said whether Podemos will vote against the decree or abstain when it reaches Congress. She wants to give the protests time to make an impact. If the government approves what she considers a stopgap, she says she will call for it to be withdrawn and replaced. She opposes splitting the measures across several decrees, arguing that this would allow the Socialist Party to let the more ambitious proposals fail in Congress.

Topics: Housing · Tourism · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com