this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Spain orders Airbnb to block nearly 66,000 holiday rental listings over rule violations (apnews.com)
submitted 3 days ago by FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
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MADRID (AP) — Spain has ordered Airbnb to block more than 65,000 holiday listings on its platform for having violated rules, the Consumer Rights Ministry said Monday.

The ministry said that many of the 65,935 Airbnb listings it had ordered to be withdrawn did not include their license number or specify whether the owner was an individual or a company. Others listed numbers that didn’t match what authorities had.

Spain is grappling with a housing affordability crisis that has spurred government action against short-term rental companies.

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[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Spains regions lack of their own police, tax collection (the German federal level doesn't even have a tax office), only partial cultural autonomy. Also the powers they have are only devolved, they're not guaranteed those rights.

German states are fully formed states in themselves, they have their own sovereignty, delegating the exercise of parts of it to the federal level just as EU member states delegate sovereignty to the EU. "Fully formed state" here meaning that they do not rely on the federal level for their administration, in fact living in Germany you generally don't come into contact with federal bureaucracy at all, it's all state or municipal level (district level is technically state level, they're devolved public bodies).

I'll grant you that among unitary states Spain is quite federal, but it's not "more federal than federal countries".

[–] barryamelton@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Spanish regions have their own police. These police forces are autonomous from the central ones. https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polic%C3%ADa_auton%C3%B3mica Some even have a specific name: Mossos, Ertzaintza, policia foral, etc..

The Spanish regions have autonomy on both collecting taxes, and assigning their own budgets. They are autonomous in the case of emergencies, healthcare, education (which allows them to set their culture), cultural ministeries,, with their own regional bodies that make their own decisions.

All this is more federal than the federal states of Germany. Signed, somebody from Spain that lives in Germany, and does come in contact with the federal government quite often.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All of that is things that German states have. Not sure what federal agency you're in contact with but it certainly isn't the Ausländeramt that's state-level.

[–] barryamelton@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Exactly. All of that things that Germany has, meanwhile Spain is not even a federation. Yet it has the same level or more of autonomy on its regions than a federation.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Found a paper (a bit older, 2001, but should still be mostly accurate) comparing the two. Cliff notes:

  • Despite legislative power going by default to the central state in Spain and to the states in Germany, distribution of power is overall comparable. Less uniform in Spain as every region gets its own autonomy statute instead of all German states pooling their sovereignty in a uniform way.
  • Administration is practically completely state matter in Germany, while Spain retains central administration structures in all regions. Those largely delegate matters to the region's administrations, though. So again overall not too dissimilar in practice.
  • Regarding the judicature: The regions don't have courts. They have some say when it comes to how court districts are drawn and that's pretty much it. German states all have their own courts and appeals courts, the federal level only has cassation courts. In this area German states have way more autonomy. States elect judges for their own courts as well as 50% of federal judges, or 50% of the people who elect them are designated by the states, depending.
  • Spanish regions have very limited means to influence central legislative. No right to initiative, no own legislative body, just a right to petition. German states can initiate federal law, have their own legislative body, and much federal law needs passing by both federal and state bodies because it tangentially affects state prerogatives.
  • Interestingly, the federal level has larger powers of oversight over the German states than Spain does over the regions. In both cases the oversight isn't large, though, in Germany it only exists in so far states are administering federal law on behalf of the federation, which isn't often the case. E.g. (practically all) criminal law is federal law, but administered by the states on their own behalf.
  • German states have more financial autonomy. I won't get into details the distribution of taxes between federation and states in Germany is complex AF, also, has been renegotiated multiple times. Regarding administration, though, as said: The federation has no tax office, they couldn't collect taxes if they wanted to.
  • German states have much, much, much more power when it comes to asserting their power. Maybe that's why they're not as hell-bent on carving out power for themselves: Autonomous regions have to rely on public sentiment and the good will of the constitutional court, otherwise the central authority can just walk straight over them, so they take whatever they can get their hands on while German states are much more relaxed about it.
[–] barryamelton@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Thanks for sharing! This is an incredible comparison.