The Govern has set up a working group to implement its objective of limiting the purchase of homes on the islands by foreigners. This has been informed by the Conselleria de Movilidad y Vivienda, which shows the Govern’s commitment to study this limitation.

Several ministries will participate in this working group, as well as the UIB, which is already working on the drafting of a preliminary report on European legislation in this area. By way of background, in March the Parliament approved an initiative by Més per Menorca to carry out this study within a period of three months and thus study formulas that limit the purchase of second homes in the island community by foreigners.

The initial report on the European regulatory situation addresses the current “complex” legal framework that makes it difficult to limit the purchase of real estate by foreigners in EU territory, although this is a starting point. Denmark and Finland do have restrictions in certain cases for non-nationals.

From now on, the working group will analyse existing experiences at European and international level in order to draw conclusions applicable to the problems of the Balearic Islands and its specific nature as an “insular and limited” territory.

In this context, the President of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, hopes that Spain’s upcoming presidency of the European Union (EU) will pave the way for the Balearic Islands’ uniqueness as an archipelago to be addressed and for this initiative to be approved.

The latest data published by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, as reported by Efe, reveal that in the Balearic Islands non-residents, 97% foreigners and only 2.4% Spaniards, bought 27.91% of the homes sold in the second quarter of this year.