The establishment of an 'island exception' for the Balearics and indeed other island territories in the EU could well be a theme of the next legislative period. This exception would involve regulatory amendment to introduce restrictions on the purchase of properties by non-residents. For this to prosper, however, a political make-up sympathetic to such an exception would be required, and that is by no means certain.
The right is generally opposed to this, but there is greater political harmony between right and left on the need for tighter control of holiday rentals and of advertising on websites such as Airbnb, something which is already being pursued.
These are the two issues which tend to dominate talk of relations with Brussels, but there is another matter which represents a longstanding grievance and is one on which both right and left can agree. This is the question of insularity.
Ever since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, it has been felt that the Balearics have been disadvantaged by how the region is classified, or rather isn't classified. The comparison is drawn with the Canary Islands, which is an 'ultraperipheral region'; this doesn't apply to the Balearics.
The distinction is important as it affects aid under EU rules, e.g. the maximum aid to companies under the so-called De Minimis rule. In the case of the Balearics, it is felt that this has meant that real measures to compensate for the disadvantages of insularity have been avoided. These in turn, it is argued, have hindered competitiveness.
Insularity may not be a headline-grabber in the way that home buying and holiday rentals are, but it is a matter of fundamental importance to the Balearics.
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RickJust as an fyi, when property prices in Spain collapsed during the big crash, Mallorca managed to keep out of recession by managing to stabilise their property market. People seem to have short memories. It wasn’t a fun time.
Really??? Look in the villages. So many empty properties … people don’t rent because of the laws protecting squatters. Air bnb - look at the etv reference. Yep - Mallorca has strong laws on what property and what can be rented out. It’s fierce. Generally no one bothers to enforce this law … but they could. Property - yep there’s a real estate market, but mallorcans control it. They’re clever people. Tourism? Yep, needs limits, but it’s the island’s income. And people understand that. There’s a real media agenda here and it’s got nasty. But to portray Mallorcan folk as victims is missing the point. This is a beautiful island, where local people are and have been, rightfully in control. The issues are complex, politics more so.
Just TogetpublishedBeing "insular" didn't do much for the UK. How many thousands of Airbnb's are there in Mallorca? 50000?, 100000? 2 million? There's an easy way to find out. Just look. The estimated number of "illegal" holiday lets vary from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand, although nobody seems to be able to provide any mathematically plausible rationale for how they come up with these estimates. But if so, it does beg the question of where is the enforcement? Last count, there's something like 400000 private dwellings in Mallorca. When you find out how many Airbnb's there are, do some quick maths. You may be surprised to discover that the entire island isn't on Airbnb or any other platform, but only a comparatively small fraction of the housing pool. Oh, did you know that there's a secret global cabal of corrupt deep state actors out to get Donald Trump. Yeah, really, they've accused him of all sorts of illegal stuff, but haven't come up with one shred of evidence that he was even remotely involved in anything. And after all, his history and reputation is squeaky clean. And the whole thing is so secret that only Trump knows about it. Crazy world, eh?
RickSo we lose a few estate agents, no great loss there. Better option would be to ban Airbnb and the such like from operating on the islands, that would free up hundreds if not thousands of properties as they would be rented or sold as soon as any income from them was lost.
Introducing restrictions on the purchase of properties by non-residents would cause the property market in the higher segment to collapse and put a significant part of the real estate related companies out of business. Great idea and legally highly contentious. Fellow EU citizens put their savings in a home here and then they get the rug pulled from under them? Shameful idea.