In Spain, housing crisis spurs mass protests
Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across 40 Spanish cities on Saturday to protest against the country’s rising rent and limited affordable housing due to surging tourist apartments. The protesters claim that the center-left government failed to strike a balance between the living conditions of its citizens, migrants and the rising number of tourists in Europe’s fastest growing economy.
In Barcelona, thousands gathered in the Plaça d’Espanya to demand a 50% decrease in rents, extended lease period and end of property speculation to stop the practice of buying and selling properties for profit.
“The housing game is rigged in favour of anyone with assets while tax incentives encourage them to acquire more and more property,” Jaime Palomera of the Barcelona Urban Research Institute said. “We have an economic model that encourages investment in assets that don’t create any value but simply use rent as a way of sucking money out of the middle classes.”
Madrid tenants’ union representative Valeria Racu told The Guardian that 1.4 million households in the city now spend more than 30% of their income on housing, a significant increase compared to 200,000 families 10 years ago.
A record 94 million tourists and over 60,000 migrants arrived in Spain last year, yielding a 500,000-unit housing deficit. Cities have responded to the crisis on a case-by-case basis — in Madrid, officials said there are at least 15,000 illegal tourist apartments and have put a freeze on short-term rentals, while in Barcelona, the city council said they will not renew the licenses for 10,000 tourist apartments set to expire in 2028.
In Australia, presidential frontrunner rescinds public service crackdown
Australian presidential candidate Peter Dutton, who currently leads the country’s center-right Liberal Party, rescinded his election promise to end work from home options for public service workers and fire 41,000 government employees on Monday, claiming his coalition “made a mistake.”
Dutton had campaigned for the policies since the 2022 election, arguing that the new positions in health departments, disability agencies and welfare programs created by the current center-left Australian Labor Party are “wasteful spending.” He claimed his plan to reduce the roles and end work from home policies could save $24 billion.
The Labor Party criticized Duton’s proposal, warning that it could reduce workers’ flexibility and influence other private sectors. Public service minister Katy Gallagher had argued that Dutton’s proposal was “stolen from the United States,” and could disproportionately impact women, who typically bear the parental responsibilities for children.
“We’re listening to what people have to say,” Dutton told Channel Nine. “We’ve made a mistake in relation to the policy. We apologise for that.”
In the United Kingdom, Prince Harry challenges security downgrade
Prince Harry arrived at London’s Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday for a two-day hearing to challenge downgrades to his security that came after he resigned from royal duties with his wife Meghan Markle in March 2020.
The British government’s initial ruling had removed Harry’s automatic protection during his visits to the United Kingdom, and was upheld by the High Court of Justice in London last year. Harry’s lawyers condemned the ruling as “unjustified” and said it puts his safety at risk, citing instances where he and his wife received threats from paparazzi and Al-Qaeda.
At the opening at the Court of Appeal, Shaheed Fatima, Harry’s lawyer, said he had been “singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment.” The Home Office refuted that he has “unique and unusual circumstances” that are best accommodated with a “bespoke” arrangement.
“There is a person sitting behind me who is being told he is getting a special, bespoke process when he knows and has experienced a process that is manifestly inferior in every respect,” Fatima said.
The couple left their roles as senior royals and moved to Montecito, California, in 2020, claiming that his family was “not being protected by the institution.” At the 2024 New York Times Dealbook Summit, Harry said relocating to the United States gave them the privacy and freedom they had been seeking — something they lacked in the United Kingdom due to “concerns around security.”
Contact Amanda Chen at [email protected].
