Albiol Pledges 48-Hour Evictions of Squatters if PP Wins Nov. 29 Vote
Badalona mayor Xavier García Albiol says a PP government would evict squatters within 48 hours. What he proposed in Vitoria and how Badalona shaped it.
Xavier García Albiol, the mayor of Badalona and the Partido Popular’s lead candidate for Congress in the Barcelona constituency, says a PP government would let authorities remove illegal occupants of a property within 48 hours at most. He made the pledge on a campaign visit to an occupied former factory in Vitoria, in the Basque Country, ahead of the general election on Nov. 29.
According to ABC, the law is one Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP leader, has asked Albiol to draft. It would apply nationwide, so the proposal matters to property owners, landlords and neighbors of occupied buildings in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia as much as in the Basque Country.
A campaign stop at the old URSSA plant
The visit took place on Wednesday at the former URSSA industrial site in Adurza, a Vitoria neighborhood. Several leaders of the Basque PP went with him. In a video he posted on X, Albiol said the people inside greeted the group by shouting “¡Viva Pedro Sánchez!”, in support of the prime minister.
He used the moment to attack the national government. In his post, he described the factory as illegally occupied and the scene of daily disturbances, and argued that squatters cheering Sánchez showed the country was upside down. He closed by calling for an end to the situation and for order to be restored on the streets, one of the main themes of his campaign.
The former URSSA and EGA facilities have been a source of controversy in Vitoria for some time. In May, a joint operation by the Ertzaintza (the Basque regional police), Spain’s Policía Nacional and the local police identified 119 people living in unsanitary conditions across several abandoned buildings on the site, ABC reported.
What the proposed law would change
Albiol’s central promise is speed. If the PP forms a government after Nov. 29, he says, the new rules would allow illegal occupants to be evicted in no more than 48 hours. Details such as how courts would be involved or how the deadline would be enforced have not been disclosed.
At the Vitoria event he argued that squatters currently enjoy more legal protection than owners or the neighbors who live with the consequences. The PP’s national headquarters, known as Génova, wants to use his record as a mayor to carry part of his anti-squatting agenda into Congress, according to ABC.
Why it matters for Badalona and Barcelona
Squatting has defined Albiol’s time in Badalona. The best-known case is the B9, a former secondary school occupied by close to 400 people, most of them immigrants. Albiol pushed for its eviction in December 2025 and later ordered the building torn down.
Speaking to ABC in front of the ruins a few days ago, he defended those decisions and said city councils would keep working with their hands tied until the law changes. “En Badalona llegamos al límite en nuestras actuaciones,” he said of what his council had done.
The issue has also made him an unusual figure in Catalan politics. In the 2023 municipal election his party won 18 of the 27 seats on the Badalona council, an absolute majority and a rare result for the PP in Catalonia. ABC reports that his support reaches beyond PP voters to some left-wing and pro-independence voters, which Albiol himself has acknowledged.
What happens next
Spain votes in a general election on Nov. 29. Albiol heads the PP list in Barcelona, and the 48-hour eviction law is one of the measures he is campaigning on. He has tied it to his party reaching government.
Source: ABC
