The Government of Spain sets the conditions for the guarantees that will facilitate access to housing for young people and families with dependent minors

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

The Council of Ministers has defined the conditions, criteria and requirements for accessing the line of State guarantees of €2.5 billion to help 50,000 young people and families with dependent minors to buy their first home.

The Minister for Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, pointed out that the Government is thereby fulfilling one of the commitments of the President of the Government and the coalition agreement of the parties that make up the Government. She also framed the initiative as part of a set of measures to tackle a "complex problem" for which there are no "easy or single solutions". Among these actions, she highlighted the €3.5 billion for public housing policies included in the 2023 General Budget, the approval of the Housing Act, the state plans promoted with the autonomous communities, and the more than €4.5 billion of the Recovery Plan to encourage affordable renting and refurbishment, among other purposes.

Collateral to access mortgages

Isabel Rodríguez explained that the guarantees are aimed at people with economic and employment stability who have decided to buy a home, but are unable to do so due to the situation of the mortgage market and lack of savings. "We are going to be their guarantor, and we are going to give their bank guarantees so that they can access the mortgage that will guarantee their home," she said. The state guarantee will generally cover up to 20% of the amount of the credit.

She also said that the measure will address two specific issues. First, it will alleviate the situation in areas where the rent amounts paid exceed the mortgage payment amount, by facilitating the exit of people who want to own a home from the rental market. It will also help to keep the population in rural areas, another of the Executive's priorities.

In designing the line of guarantees, the ministry has taken into account the profile of families who, due to the financial crisis fifteen years ago, lost the ability to buy a home and have not yet recovered it, and the fact that 40% of tenants spend more than 40% of their income on rent, among other factors. The minister indicated that the goal is that no citizen should have to spend more than 30% of their income on accessing decent housing.

Conditions and requirements

The Minister for Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

According to Isabel Rodríguez, the agreement of the Council of Ministers will take the form of an accord with the Official Credit Institute (ICO), which financial institutions, with whom both the Ministry of the Economy and the Ministry of Housing have already held talks, will be able to join. It is foreseen that loans under this guarantee facility can be formalised until 31 December 2025. The agreement with the ICO will stipulate that this period may be extended for a further two years.

Young people under 35 years old and families with dependent minors may benefit from the line of guarantees for the purchase of their first home intended for their habitual and permanent residence. They must be natural persons of legal age and legal residence in Spain, accredited continuously and uninterruptedly for the two years prior to the loan application. The term of the guarantee will be a maximum of 10 years, and the home must be the habitual residence of the mortgage applicant also for at least 10 years.

The beneficiary's individual income may not exceed 4.5 times the Public Multiple Effect Income Indicator (IPREM), i.e. €37,800 gross per year. In the case of two people purchasing the property, this amount will be doubled. In addition, the limit will be increased by 0.3 times the IPREM - €2,520 gross per year - for each dependent child. The value of the beneficiary's assets may not exceed €100,000.

With regard to the price of the property purchased, the minister pointed out that the government will ensure that there is a maximum limit that can be set according to the territorial scope and then modified by the monitoring committee of the agreement.

Future Sustainable Mobility Act

The Council of Ministers has agreed to forward the Sustainable Mobility Bill to the Spanish Parliament for its urgent parliamentary processing to comply with the deadlines agreed with the European Commission in the Addendum to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

The Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has recalled that the text had already been submitted to Parliament in December 2022, but did not complete processing due to the elections. Puente defended the importance of reactivating the legislative initiative now because it is "tremendously necessary" for Spain and is linked to the receipt of recovery funds.

The Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, during his speech at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

The text is open to amendments by parliamentary groups, and the minister is confident that it will be able to generate "a high degree of consensus", as was apparent when it was submitted on the previous occasion: "We will continue along this path of dialogue and the incorporation of proposals so that, in the end, it will have the greatest possible support".

Óscar Puente stressed that the law has an economic rationale because mobility accounts for 13% of household spending in Spain, creates more than 800,000 jobs, accounts for almost 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and generates more than 5,000 million trips by public transport. Moreover, from a social perspective, it is a right that transcends the place where each citizen lives. The standard is also needed to address what mobility means in terms of pollution.

"In our country, 27% of greenhouse gas emissions are related to mobility. We are 5 points above the European average and this gap had to be closed by introducing measures that would allow us to converge with the European average", the minister explained.

Pillars of mobility: social cohesion, clean, cost-effective and digital

According to the minister, the new regulatory framework for transport and mobility in our country is based on four pillars.

It is a social right because, for the first time, the future law will recognise mobility as a citizen's right, which is not to be confused with free movement, but with the right to have a transport ecosystem that guarantees the exercise of other rights, such as work, leisure and health. Puente also pointed out that "a fundamental premise of this law is to respect the competences of each of the administrations and to support collaboration between them".

The second objective is decarbonisation. On this environmental and sustainable pillar, the minister indicated that "we have to move forward in the transformation of cities from cities of cars to cities of people" and, always respecting the competences of local councils, encourage a sustainable mobility model.

Regarding the freight sector, Óscar Puente expressed his commitment to "putting more freight on trains and taking it off the roads".

With regard to the objective of efficient spending, the minister stressed that the text includes the recommendations of several organisations to guarantee the socio-environmental profitability of actions, transparency mechanisms and accountability of decisions. "We want to reduce inefficiencies in public investment spending by around €8 billion over a decade, and also to increase business productivity by up to 3% in the same period", he said.

In this context, Puente also anticipated that objective criteria and percentages of financing by the different administrations will be introduced in the integration of the railways as they pass through the urban sections, the so-called "subterramientos".

With regard to the pillar of digitalisation and support for innovation, the minister stressed the need to create a shared data space between transport companies, infrastructure managers and administrations. A mobility test environment will also be set up to test innovative mobility solutions.

Spain, a benchmark in infrastructure

The Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Sports and Government Spokesperson, the Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility and the Minister for Housing and Urban Agenda at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/José Manuel Álvarez

The Minister for Transport and Sustainable Mobility reiterated that the law aims for Spain to continue to be a benchmark in infrastructures, and for "mobility to be at the same level" as this network.

Puente argued that Spain is the first country in the world in terms of high-speed railway connectivity, with 70% of the population connected, and the second country in terms of high-speed kilometres, behind just China. It is also the leading country in the EU in terms of motorways and the third in the world, behind only the US and China. It is also the leading country in the EU in terms of port calls, as well as the best in the world in terms of airport infrastructures.

Tolls on motorways are not covered by the law

During his intervention in the press conference after the Council of Ministers, Óscar Puente clarified that the payment for use of motorways is not included in the law, nor is the study of this.

The minister explained that the agreement reached with the EU replaces this possible payment mechanism with a programme to increase investment in rail freight transport, which includes three premises: developing rail motorways in the sections where there is business demand, subsidising rail freight transport fees for operators for at least five years, and launching support and incentives for the sector.

Puente remarked that the Government is planning to reach at least the 10% that freight transport by train represents on average in the EU by 2023.

Stability objectives

The Council of Ministers has once again approved the stability objectives for public administrations for the period 2024-2026, and the expenditure ceiling for this year's General State Budget. This is the same route approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 December and endorsed by the Lower House of Parliament on 10 January, but rejected by the Upper House on 7 February.

"We continue to work without wasting any time to have a budget as soon as possible that will allow our country to continue on this very positive path of growth and job creation. In short, a budget that allows our companies and our productive fabric to continue to advance and strengthen", said the Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Sports and Government Spokesperson, Pilar Alegría.

Fight against drug trafficking

The Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Sports and Government Spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, during her speech at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

At the start of the Council of Ministers press conference, the spokesperson expressed the Government's condolences on behalf of the families and colleagues of the two civil guards "murdered" last Friday in Barbate (Cádiz), and its wishes for "a speedy recovery" for the injured officers. Pilar Alegría praised the daily "extraordinary work" and "absolute dedication" of the state law enforcement forces and agencies.

The Guardia Civil, she added, will continue to work to clarify what happened, once the alleged perpetrators have been arrested. "We express our commitment to the families and assure them that this crime will not go unpunished. This government and the state law enforcement forces and agencies will not relent in their objective of combating drug trafficking and fighting crime in our country," she assured.

Business and job creation

The Government spokesperson highlighted two items of economic data released last Friday which, in her opinion, "guarantee that our country is heading in the right direction": the creation of 108,091 new companies in 2023, the highest figure since 2007, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), and Spain's leadership in job creation, with one out of every three new jobs in the Eurozone, according to Eurostat. "Higher quality jobs and, above all, in value-added sectors," she said.

Pilar Alegría also pointed out that the Spanish economy is growing at a rate of 2.5%, inflation is under control and the unemployment rate is the lowest in the last 16 years.

Non official translation