Arab News | Spain tenants’ unions urge new law after pensioner eviction sparks anger

MADRID: Spain’s main tenants’ unions on Friday urged the government to pass a new law to tackle the country’s housing crisis after an 87-year-old was evicted from her Madrid home, sparking nationwide protests.

The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal on Wednesday has put soaring housing costs back at the center of Spain’s political debate ahead of a general election due in 2027, increasing pressure on Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government to act.

The unions called on his minority coalition to approve a package of measures dubbed the “Maricarmen decree” at its next cabinet meeting on Tuesday, including the automatic renewal of rental contracts.

Abascal was forced to leave the apartment where she had lived for 70 years after a real estate firm acquired the property and raised the rent by 275 percent to 2,650 euros ($3,000), according to the Madrid tenants’ union.

“My home has been my life and now I have to leave it behind. But that does not mean I am going to stop fighting,” she said from hospital, where she has been since Wednesday, in a video posted on X by the union.

Alicia del Rio, a spokeswoman for the Madrid tenants’ union, described Abascal’s case as “the final straw” and said the situation had become “unbearable”.

“Faced with this wave of indignation and anger, we ask ourselves: will the political actors in this country rise to the occasion?” she told a news conference.

Sanchez, in power since 2018, is under pressure over housing, including from some of his own supporters, with regular protests in Madrid and other cities since Abascal’s eviction.

Short-term tourist rentals such as Airbnb and investment funds are blamed for driving up prices and reducing the supply of homes available to residents.

Spain has introduced measures in recent years aimed at increasing affordable housing and limiting rent rises, but housing costs remain a major political and social issue.