It was billed as one of the largest real-estate events in Europe, attracting as many as 15,000 people ranging from investment firms to developers. But as the District trade show and summit got under way last week in Madrid, housing campaigners from 140 organisations across the globe turned up, intent on holding their own “counter-summit” to push back against the idea of housing as a financial asset. Many of the campaigners arrived in the Spanish capital as Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman who uses a wheelchair, was being evicted from the apartment where she had lived for seven decades.
As anger over the eviction gave way to days of protests and an encampment in the heart of Madrid, the presence of campaigners from Italy to Ireland was a poignant reminder of the global dimension of the crisis. The eviction underscored how brutal access to housing had become for so many around the world, said Teresa Mamede, a housing campaigner from Lisbon who travelled to Madrid for the counter-summit. Within the EU, prices soared by 53% between 2010 and 2024, according to Eurostat, while rents increased 25% over the same period.
Not all countries have been hit equally; while Vienna remains a bright spot for its ample stock of public housing that has tempered rental costs, Estonia has seen rents surge 208% in the same time period, while Ireland and Hungary have seen increases of more than 100%. Some of the soaring costs can be chalked up to the “ever-intensifying social experiment” playing out in Europe, research fellow Tim White noted last year, as officials see whether the machinations of finance capitalism can deliver on the fundamental need for housing. Voters in Berlin, however, recently opted for another path.
In a city where rents had climbed nearly 70% in the past decade, a quarter of voters backed the leftwing party Die Linke in this month’s state elections, making it Berlin’s strongest party. The strategy behind their success was far from rocket science, said Guardian Europe columnist Fatma Aydemir. At the Madrid counter-summit, campaigners launched a pan-European alliance to demand indefinite rental contracts and rent control across the continent.
Earlier this month, dozens of organisations launched the European Citizens’ Initiative, calling on people to sign their petition for EU-level measures to protect tenants, curb speculation and convert empty buildings into homes. Maricarmen, the evicted octogenarian, will be allowed to return to her apartment, it was confirmed on Tuesday. Her rent will remain around the €500 a month she had paid for years – significantly less than the €2,650 the investment firm that owns her apartment had initially demanded.
This week the Spanish government also said it had approved two housing decrees that include reforms such as a ban on evictions until 2030, and the regulation of temporary lettings and lettings by room. But these measures will now have to win approval in the country’s fractured parliament. What exactly comes next for the housing movement that has gripped Spain in recent days is anyone’s guess.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
