This is the Spanish government's housing plan: 7 billion euros to be paid between the State and the autonomous communities

MadridFirst housing plan of the Spanish government within the framework of the new housing law. This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers presented the pillars of its policy to try to solve citizens' main problem, according to the CIS, but with the difficulty that a significant part of the competencies is in the hands of the autonomous communities. The minister in charge, Isabel Rodríguez, has assured that the "public housing stock is protected" to prevent the investment of state funds in the construction and habilitation of buildings from ending up in private hands. "Until now, the role of the general administration of the State was that of a paying agent," said Rodríguez, whereas now its intention is to intervene in the autonomous communities to ensure citizens' "rights".

This new 2026-2030 Plan foresees an investment of 7,000 million euros, 60% of which would be contributed by the State and, in contrast, 40% by the autonomous communities. However, they will not be distributed equally across the territory: in the case of Catalonia, the plan foresees 1,015 million euros to be allocated between the Generalitat (40%) and the State (60%). An increase of 473 million euros compared to the previous plan. In the case of the Community of Madrid, 1,113 million euros are outlined, which means an increase of 815 million euros. What is the reason for this difference? According to ministry sources, the increase compared to the previous plan is smaller than in other communities because the Generalitat had previously contributed more than 40% of resources in the plan. "Catalonia has done its homework," they assure, as it has met more than the minimums required by Housing. And indeed, the fulfillment of the plan, as the data show, depends on the will of compliance of each autonomous community and what they have found so far from the ministry is that the PP communities, they say, were not investing the minimum 40% required by the State.

For this reason, the controversy is already served. The autonomous government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso says that the new state plan "invades competencies and is not agreed upon with the communities". "Everything boils down to the fact that if you don't believe in Pedro Sánchez's interventionism, there is no money," said the Madrid Housing counselor, Jorge Rodrigo, via X. The Spanish government has replied: "Isabel Díaz Ayuso believes that she harms the government when she does not apply the law, but she is harming one and a half million people who live on rent. Today their rents could be frozen if the president of Madrid applied the cap [on rents]," lamented the minister, and added that they would be "surprised" if Madrid were left out of the plan because it would mean being left without state resources to allocate to housing matters.

And it is that the distribution of funds is "subject" to a commitment of "execution" by the autonomous communities in three areas: building new homes, rehabilitating the existing stock, and protecting citizens' right to housing above speculation. The idea is that of the resources 40% will be allocated to construction, 30% to rehabilitation, and 30% to aid. The guarantee that the State government has to achieve more investment –says the ministry– in housing is the "semestral control" over the communities regarding the execution of works and setting conditions for continuing to receive money based on progress. "Before we lost control the moment we handed over the money, now they will have to report information to us," clarified the minister.

Measures to increase the housing stock

The "public park shielding"

Another novelty presented by Minister Rodríguez is the introduction of "controls" and "transparency" in housing policies. According to the Spanish government, the plan incorporates a "safeguard" so that "speculation cannot occur" with public housing. "In the last 45 years, 2.7 million protected homes have been built, but most were declassified over the years," says the ministry. If they had been kept within the public stock –they assure–, Spain would have a stock similar to European standards.

At the same time, the ministry also introduces an anti-fraud clause in public housing allocations to avoid cases like those in Alicante. With what measures? According to the plan, affordable rental apartments will be allocated with "objective, measurable, and transparent criteria," without further specification. In terms of transparency, they also want to ensure that there is public data and reduce discourse "based on "fake news", and to do so they will ask the autonomous communities to send them "information on rental contracts in the community's deposit registry." This measure, they believe, "will provide real-time information on the number of active rentals, their price, tenant turnover, and the available supply."

The implementation schedule for the housing plan is as follows: this April, the State and the communities must meet to discuss the plan's implementation; a sectoral conference will be held to approve the distribution of funds, and, finally, the measures will be rolled out between June and September of this year.