European Parliament votes in favour of the Auken report which calls for EU funds to Spain to be frozen until real estate abuses are corrected
By h.b. - Mar 26, 2009 - 1:20 PM
However despite the report from the Danish Green Euro M.P., Margrete Auken, being passed, the freezing of funds is not yet binding
The European Parliament has today approved the Auken Report on real estate abuses in Spain, the report which threatens to freeze all community funds for Spain until such abuses denounced in Brussels by Spanish residents from several E.U. countries are resolved. The decision to cut the funding is however not yet binding despite today’s vote.
The vote supporting the Auken report, compiled by the Danish Green Euro M.P., is considered to be an extremely harsh reflection on the town planning situation in Spain.
Her report calls for the suspension and revision of all new building projects which do not respect the environment or guarantee the right of ownership. It also demands the halting of developments which have already started if they do not meet current E.U. legislation.
The text of the report says that real estate corruption is endemic in Spain, and that responsibility lies at all levels of the administration for the ‘unsustainable development’. It slams the judiciary saying that it is ‘not correctly prepared’ to deal with the problem, saying its rulings in many cases cannot be carried out in a way that compensate the victims of abuse. This has enforced the impression among foreigners in Spain of a lack of action and impartiality of the Spanish justice system.
It says there is a lack of ‘clarity, precision and judicial security’ in the current legislation in Spain regarding the right of ownership, and a lack of application and coherent legislation in environmental matters, and this has led to many of the abuses. Lax judicial proceedings have created ‘a form of endemic corruption’, and it notes the ‘greed’ and ‘speculative conduct’ on the part of local authorities.
The report singles out Marbella, where it says it is ‘worried about the town planning situation’, where ‘dozens of thousands of homes have been constructed illegally, and which probably infringe community legislation’. It also names developments in environmentally protected areas in Cabo de Gata in Almería and in Murcia.
The Auken report also attacks the Ley de Costas, Coastal Law, which it says has to be urgently revised to protect the rights of the legitimate owners of property and those who own small plots of land on the coast which have no negative impact on the coastal environment.
Finally it calls on the Spanish authorities to speed up the justice system and compensate the victims of town planning abuses by applying laws already in force.
The vote in the European Parliament was 349 in favour, 110 against and 114 abstentions from the Spanish PSOE and PP members.
Alternative amendments put forward by both Spanish Socialist and PP members were both defeated.
The Socialist amendment did have support from other European Socialists, until the British Euro M.P. Michael Cashman withdrew his support, leading finally to the Socialist amendment also being defeat.
It’s the third time that town planning abuses in Spain have been denounced by the EU, after earlier reports in December 2005 and in June 2007, but the first time that E.U. funding has been threatened to be withdrawn as a result.