Government secures final approval for housing package, amid protests

The government of Portugal has secured approval for its Mais Habitação (More Housing) programme, in a final overall vote in parliament that saw the governing Socialist Party (PS) alone voting for a final legislative package that includes changes in terms of the rules for long- and short-term rentals and their licensing.

The opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD), Chega, Liberal Initiative (IL), Communist Party (PCP) and Left Bloc (BE) voted against the proposal, while Livre and People-Animals-Nature (PAN) chose to abstain, as they had on 19 May after the first reading of the bill.

The opposition parties brought several of the amendments they had tabled – and which were rejected in committee – to a vote in the final plenary session, strongly criticising the governing PS, albeit for different reasons, in presenting their respective requests.

For the PS, Maria Begonha emphasised that “between a left-wing perspective in which the entire rental market would have to be controlled” and the perspective of the right, “there is no possible consensus.”

The rules proposed by the opposition parties were all rejected, as had happened in the committee stage in the working group on housing created within the committee on economy.

The presentation of the requests for votes and the votes themselves were followed in the galleries by people dressed in black T-shirts, linked to the short-term rentals sector, who left the moment deputies got up to vote against the government’s Mais Habitação bill, beating their feet as they left the place – which prompted the speaker of parliament to interrupt the vote until they left and the noise had ended.