The president of the Balearic Govern, Francina Armengol, said Tuesday that the Executive is already studying and “working” on the possibility of limiting the purchase of housing by non-residents to ensure their acquisition by citizens of the archipelago.
On the occasion of a parliamentary question, Armengol said that housing policy is “key” for her government and that she is “aware” of the difficulties that exist in accessing housing on the islands.
In this context, the president trusts that the next presidency of the European Union (EU) for Spain will open the way to analyze the uniqueness of the Balearic Islands as an archipelago and make this initiative possible.
In his question, the spokesman for MÉS per Menorca, Josep Castell, asked the president to create a working group to study this issue, as recently approved by the Parliament in a non-legislative proposal presented by the Menorcan party. “The European regulations can be changed,” said Castell, who insisted on the need to find an exception for the Balearic Islands to make this limitation possible.
There is a will to limit housing purchases
For now, no autonomous government will follow the Balearic Islands in its efforts to limit the purchase of homes to non-residents to alleviate the shortage and even the increasing lack of accommodation on the islands, although there are other territories with similar problems, such as Valencia, which considers that these are measures that “should not be dismissed”.
The latest data published by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda reveal that in the Balearic Islands non-residents -more than 97% foreigners and only 2.4% Spaniards- bought 27.91% of the homes sold in the second quarter of this year .
In the Canary Islands this proportion was 23.38 % and in the Valencian Community 21.04 %, although several provinces exceeded these figures, with Alicante leading the way (36.49 %), followed by Málaga (29.88 %) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (25.95 %), ahead of others such as Las Palmas (20.74 %), Girona (20.54 %) and Murcia (14.36 %)
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