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Spain proposes to the EU to limit in the Canary Islands the purchase of homes that are not for living in

by AI | 15.Jan 2026 | Europe in brief AI

The Government of Spain has proposed to the European Commission that it authorize it to limit the purchase of homes in the Canary Islands that are not going to be used for residential purposes in order to reduce pressure on the real estate market and facilitate access to housing for young people and vulnerable groups.

File image of a residential building under construction in La Palma. EFE/Luis G Morera

The proposal is included in the package of measures that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has suggested to Brussels to include in the future simplification of the regulations for the outermost regions (ORs) of the EU, nine territories of France, Portugal and Spain to which the treaties grant special treatment, as reported by the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres.

The Government of the Canary Islands also requested measures

The Government of the Canary Islands had also approached the European Commission to make an exception for the ORs in the area of housing in order to contain rising prices, although its request went in another direction: to prohibit or limit the purchase of housing in its territory by foreign nationals who are not residents of the islands.

In fact, the president of the autonomous community, Fernando Clavijo, traveled to Brussels to persuade the Commission to step in, with statistics showing that in the Canary Islands one out of every four homes for sale ends up in the hands of foreign citizens.

And also with the argument that the islands have a fragmented and limited territory, where tensions in the real estate market affect the resident population to a greater extent.

The Government of Spain had not commented until now on that request from Clavijo, beyond acknowledging that it was going to study it, but it has already submitted to the EU its own proposal for all the outermost regions, in its case the Canary Islands.

“We propose that the acquisition of housing in the outermost regions for non-residential use be limited through legislative mechanisms, so that prices can be reduced and young people and other groups with difficulties can gain access to it,” Minister Torres explained in statements released by his department this Wednesday.

Other pending issues

Spain’s contribution to the debate on the future of the OR regulations extends to other areas of special interest for the Canary Islands: the primary sector, immigration and state aid.

In the case of the primary sector, it sets out a specific request for the Programme of Options Specifically Relating to Remoteness and Insularity (POSEI), considering it “of vital importance for the primary sector” of the Canary Islands.

Its proposal, shared by the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance, “highlights the strategic value of the primary sector in the ORs, especially in the Canary Islands, requesting, in turn, that the specific nature of POSEI be maintained with a sufficient budget and also calling for administrative and bureaucratic streamlining.”

The Ministry of Territorial Policy, which has coordinated the work to draft the text sent by Spain to Brussels, specifies that measures are also being requested for the sustainability of the primary sector, “such as the establishment of rules so that the small fleet of the ORs can be urgently renewed and the amendment of the EU Regulation to allow ‘de minimis’ aid aimed at reforms and improvements in safety and sustainability on fishing vessels of less than 12 meters.”

Migration

As for migration, Spain is asking to “facilitate the redistribution of minors and the transfer of migrants from the ORs to mainland European territory, avoiding their concentration in these regions and guaranteeing an appropriate legal framework.”

In 2025, the Canary Islands came to care on their own for almost 6,000 African minors who arrived in small boats and cayucos, who are now beginning to be distributed among the rest of the Spanish regions under the recent reform of the Immigration Law.

Spain also wants the Canary Islands and the rest of the ORs to be allowed “a more flexible regime for the approval of state aid, without restrictions as to amounts, sectors or time limits, provided that the internal cohesion of the Union is not affected.”

Finally, it encourages Brussels to turn the outermost regions into a testing ground “to try out legislative innovations in a controlled environment, simplifying rules and reducing burdens before their application to the Union as a whole.”

(January 14)