Valencia accuses Spanish government of undermining tourism and property rights

The Regional Minister for Tourism, Marián Cano, accused Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of demonizing the tourism sector and promoting electoral measures of questionable viability. She criticized the government’s recent announcement that 53,000 “illegal” tourist properties across Spain, including 7,499 in the Comunidad Valenciana, would be deregistered and converted into permanent rentals. Cano described the move as an unprecedented attack on private property and questioned how the government intended to compel owners to comply.

She stressed that the Valencian Government supports tourism regulation but argued that arbitrary announcements from Madrid not only undermine serious policymaking but also create false expectations around the real issue: the shortage of housing caused, in her view, by the legal uncertainty of national policies.

Cano reminded the central government that powers over tourist housing lie with the regions. She criticized the use of the state-level Single Housing Registry, which is already being challenged in court by several autonomous communities for encroaching on their authority. According to her, labeling homes as illegal under a regulation repeatedly questioned, even by reports from the Council of State, undermines its credibility.

She lamented that such decisions were being made without consensus with the competent regional authorities and argued that the central government’s announcements sought to appropriate achievements that autonomous communities like Valencia had already made in housing and tourism management.

Cano pointed to the progress achieved under the Comunidad Valenciana’s own regulatory framework, which marked its first anniversary this summer. The regional law has enabled agreements with municipalities to fight the shadow economy in tourism by transferring the collection of fines to local authorities. Cities such as Valencia, Benidorm, and more recently Torrevieja, have taken over enforcement responsibilities. The regional registry of tourist accommodation has also been cleaned up: of the more than 100,000 apartments previously listed, over 18,000 that lacked proper documentation have already been removed. She also highlighted measures that strengthened protections for neighbourhood associations and tenants, such as streamlined procedures for removing problematic occupants. Cano emphasized that the regional government was working with the sector to create a fairer, more orderly tourism system, while the central government was attempting to claim credit for these successes through a regulation she described as legally dubious.

She further argued that the Spanish government had long used tourism as a scapegoat for broader housing issues. She recalled that last year the Prime Minister promised to create 43,000 affordable rental homes, yet no such progress has materialized. Instead, she claimed, more and more apartments remain empty because owners are reluctant to rent them out under conditions of legal uncertainty.

Cano dismissed the idea that tourist housing was the root of the housing crisis, noting that it accounts for less than 2% of the total housing stock in the Comunidad Valenciana. She cited recent Tax Agency data showing that one in three homes in the region – around 760,000 properties- are either vacant or available for rent.

For these reasons, Cano called on the Spanish government to stop vilifying tourism, a sector that generates more than 300,000 jobs and contributes over 16% of the Valencian GDP. She urged Madrid to focus instead on fulfilling its responsibilities within the scope of its powers, while showing institutional loyalty and engaging in genuine dialogue with the autonomous communities.