European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

Realizing that on our own, or even with our similarly threatened neighbours, we
could accomplish nothing, we formed our Valencia-wide association, AUN, within
a few months. Soon we became aware that our region was far from unique in
Spain with similar versions of the Valencian approach evident elsewhere.
Along the way, the sudden, retroactive and arbitrary application of the national
coastal law dating from 1988, but largely ignored until a few years ago, has left
tens of thousands of property owners, Spanish ones included, in ‘illegal’ dwellings,
with Andalucía and Valencia being the regions most affected. To this must
be added the thousands of homes also found to be illegal due to jurisdictional
issues between local and regional authorities. Many homes have been demolished,
but thousands more are currently under threat. Every scheme to regularize
these homes has met with almost insuperable delays, legal complexities and
outrageously high costs.
It was difficult initially to get coverage for these issues in the foreign media and
non-Spanish language press here, simply because there was a degree of scepticism
concerning the harsh and unfair nature of the land laws. Perhaps more so
because the media outlets concerned were heavily reliant for advertising revenue
on real estate agents, financial institutions, town halls and specialist lawyers, who
held a vested interest in the property boom.
Our collective purpose as an association became, not just the protection of
property rights, but concern for the widespread environmental degradation that
accompanied the ’urbanismo sin fronteras’, as we witnessed in the Valencian
Community, especially in the coastal areas. This suggested to us that we had to
develop media contacts and strategic allies in our campaign. As for the political
arena, AUN decided that forming its own electoral group was not a viable option
to pursue. We chose instead to lend support to those local independent parties
and groups which in turn backed our ideals.
At the level of the European Parliament we have received support from almost
all political groups, also key was the support of successive regional ombudsmen,
the ’sindic de greuges’ in Valencia, who issued a series of reports that in their
recommendations, closely mirrored our own. Other allies we developed were the
Ambassadors of many EU countries, existing associations of foreigners, notably
’Ciudadanos Europeos’ and the ecologists’ movements. These movements have
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