Catalonia has mentioned they need to rid Barcelona of its 10,000 vacation lets within the subsequent 5 years.
Catalonia’s current ban on Airbnb-style vacation leases breaches EU regulation, based on a grievance filed with the European Fee by an business group.
The European Vacation Residence Affiliation claims that the ban, launched by Catalonia in June this 12 months, breaches the availability of providers directive.
The Spanish area introduced that they needed to rid Barcelona of its 10,000 vacationer flat licences over the following 5 years. Town has not granted new licences since 2014 however this has not helped to stem a housing disaster, with locals saying they cannot discover locations to dwell at reasonably priced costs.
Why has Barcelona’s Airbnb ban been challenged?
“We’re satisfied that EU regulation has not been revered,” Viktorija Molnar, Secretary Basic of the European Vacation Residence Affiliation (EHHA), mentioned in a press release launched on Wednesday.
“By submitting the EU grievance, we hope that the European Fee will take a step additional and open a proper infringement process towards Spain,” added Molnar, whose group represents short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and Expedia’s Vrbo.
The transfer follows authorized issues raised by the European Fee itself that restrictions introduced in by the Spanish area have been disproportionate to the goal of tackling housing shortages.
EHHA argues that “unjustified, disproportionate and unsuitable” restrictions breach the EU’s Companies Directive, which regulates a swathe of actions from accommodations to authorized recommendation. Additionally they mentioned that claims concerning the affect of Airbnb on housing affordability are “politically infected”.
The foyer group might have assist from the European Fee itself, whose officers wrote to Spanish authorities to protest the regulation in February based on a doc seen by Euronews Journey.
“The Fee providers contemplate that the restrictions laid down in [Catalonia’s] Decree-law 3/2023 will not be appropriate to achieve the target of preventing housing scarcity and are disproportionate to that goal,” the doc mentioned.
Spanish authorities may have additionally thought of much less swingeing restrictions and hadn’t supplied proof that short-term leases have been answerable for housing market tensions, it added – noting that there have been 3 times as many empty dwellings as vacationer rental properties in Catalonia.
Barcelona is only one European vacation locations looking for methods to sort out overtourism.
Cities like Venice have banned cruise ships from stopping on their shores, Athens commonly restricts customer numbers on the well-known Acropolis and Amsterdam is shifting its pink gentle district out of town centre to attempt to clear up its picture.
How the European Fee is taking over vacation leases
Brussels has already taken motion to deliver the sharing financial system inside the regulatory fold, providing new rights to platform employees and mountaineering value-added tax on short-term lets and ridesharing apps akin to Uber.
However the difficulty may show totemic for Fee President Ursula von der Leyen – who has created the first-ever European Commissioner for Housing as a part of her second mandate, set to take workplace inside weeks.
She has informed Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen to “sort out systemic points with short-term lodging leases”, in a mission letter that handed him the housing transient alongside accountability for vitality coverage.
A spokesperson for the Catalan authorities didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
CORRECTION(20 November, 10:02): corrects spelling of Molnar’s identify