Spain’s opposition pledges prison time or deportation for squatters

“Spanish repeat offenders should be sent to prison, and foreign repeat offenders should be immediately deported from Spain”.

Those were the words of Xavier García Albiol, Badalona mayor and conservative Partido Popular’s (PP) candidate for Barcelona in the upcoming election, who was tasked with heading the party’s ‘anti-squatter plan’.

The comments came as the mayor warned that he will put forward tougher penalties against squatters, known as okupas in Spain.

READ ALSO: Inquiokupas: The type of squatter homeowners in Spain fear most

He made the remarks today during an interview on Spanish TV, in which he outlined his plans to carry out the task entrusted to him by PP leader and, if polls are to be believed, next Prime Minister of Spain, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to put an end to squatting in Spain.

Albiol described it as a “very serious” problem, particularly in Catalonia, where around 40 percent of housing squatting cases occur. 

He also called for a proper plan for when parliamentary proceedings resume in order to present a proposal that will likely require rewriting several laws.

Though Albiol did mention that some more vulnerable squatters, namely those who no longer pay their rent or mortgage, should be supported by social services, the overarching political messaging was clear.

The mayor and PP figure believes that “the vast majority of squatters are people who make a living from squatting or are part of organised crime groups dedicated to causing public nuisance and criminal activity”. 

For this reason, he emphasised the need for legislative reform to “toughen penalties against crime and those who make life impossible for local residents”.

Amid a housing crisis, however, squatting has long been a divisive issue in Spain.

For some, okupas are an opportunistic, near anarchist-type practice that preys on vulnerable landlords and homeowners and takes advantage of legal loopholes to get away with not paying rent.

For others, the increasing number of squats in Spain is symptomatic of something else: rising rents, economic downturn, the abundance of empty properties and legislation which favours squatters over owners.

The true scale of the problem, too, can be overplayed.

According to a report by the Institut Cerdà and the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), there are around 100,000 occupied homes in Spain. When you consider that there are over 25 million properties in Spain, that works out to less than 0.4 percent.

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