In Portugal, Parliament to revise controversial measure against housing crisis

Portuguese MPs rejected several motions from the far left aimed at revoking the entire text.

The government has expressed its willingness to amend the text in order to take into account the proposals of the Socialists, the main opposition party.

"We have made a good law, but we do not have an absolute majority and that is why we must be open to the proposals of other parties," acknowledged the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida.

The Portuguese parliament had taken up a controversial government decree aimed at paving the way for new construction aimed at the middle class, a measure included in a plan presented by the executive last May to combat the country's housing shortage.

This reform, which allowed municipalities to reclassify agricultural land as building zones, was the target of much criticism from environmental protection organisations and land use experts.

The amendments proposed by the Socialist Party include, among other things, greater control over the decisions of local authorities and mechanisms for setting the prices of new housing to reduce the effects of property speculation.

While promulgating the first version of the reform in December, the Portuguese president, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, had himself expressed strong reservations, saying that it "constituted a significant breach" of the policy of regional planning.

Portugal has been facing a housing crisis in recent years due to a sharp rise in prices driven by real estate speculation, which mainly affects large cities.

House prices have doubled in almost ten years, according to the latest data from Eurostat. And in the third quarter of last year alone, they rose by almost 10%, according to the Bank of Portugal.