News

The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, harshly criticized in Parliament the housing policy of Pedro Sánchez’s government, accusing him of having turned “a Spain of homeowners into a Spain of the precarious.” During the president’s appearance before the Lower House, Feijóo reproached that the government’s interventionism in the real estate market has driven up prices and made access to housing more difficult, especially for young people, most of whom are forced to share rentals.

The opposition leader recalled that Parliament approved a motion urging the government to repeal the 2023 Housing Law, which the Executive has not yet done. He also denounced the paralysis of key laws such as the Land Law or the Horizontal Property Law, promoted by the PP, which he said could improve the functioning of the real estate market. In addition, he lamented that the proposal to exempt young people from income tax (IRPF) to help them buy their first home has not been implemented.

Feijóo promised that, if he reaches the Moncloa Palace, he will implement the “largest tax cut in history” on housing for young people, including reducing VAT on new housing purchases from 10% to 4%, and placing housing policy under the first vice-presidency of his future government. On economic matters, he warned that Spain is currently the European country with the highest rate of child poverty and that severe poverty, defined as living on less than €551 a month, already affects 3.4 million people.

For his part, President Sánchez responded ironically to Feijóo’s proposal, mocking the idea of creating a vice-presidency for housing and suggesting that “perhaps it would be for you, since Vox is already overtaking you in the polls.” He also sarcastically asked whether the PP plans to give it to Santiago Abascal or Ana Botella. Sánchez warned that the tax cuts proposed by the PP resemble those applied between 1996 and 2004, which caused housing prices to rise by 160% and eventually led to the real estate bubble.

The head of government defended the 2023 Housing Law and urged PP-governed autonomous communities to implement rent control and support the State Housing Plan 2023–2030, instead of allowing so-called “vulture funds” to purchase public housing (VPO). Sánchez concluded by stating that, if investment funds had not been allowed to buy these homes in the past, Spain would today have one of the most protected public housing stocks in Europe.