Today in Spain: A roundup of the latest news on Monday

Spaniards take to streets in fresh round of housing protests

Thousands of Spaniards took to the streets in protest against the “housing business” over the weekend, potentially kickstarting a fresh round of demonstrations across the country.

2024 was a year of anti-tourism protests in Spain, an issue closely connected to the housing market and, in particular, short-term tourist accommodation.

Demonstrations were held on Saturday in 40 Spanish cities ranging from Alicante and Zaragoza all the way to La Línea de la Concepción in Cádiz and Vigo in Galicia. In Madrid, according to the organisers, between 100,000 and 150,000 demonstrators turned out.

Marching behind the slogan “Let's put an end to the housing business”, demonstrators held their keys in the air, a symbol of last year's protests, and chanted: “guilty rentiers, responsible government.”

Catalonia lifts water restrictions after over four years of drought conditions

The Catalonian regional government has announced that it will begin lifting water restrictions in Barcelona and Girona. Sílvia Paneque, spokesperson for the regional authority, stated that after 56 months of drought conditions and, thanks largely to the recent heavy rainfall in Spain, restrictions on water consumption in the Ter Llobregat system are being lifted.

The Ter Llobregat supplies water to a total of 202 municipalities in the Barcelona and Girona metropolitan areas, where six million people live.

“We are taking a new step in the deescalation to continue lifting limitations on water use in the most populated areas,” Paneque said at an appearance at the Sau reservoir in Barcelona.

She added that, due to the rainfall, reservoir basins are now above 63 percent capacity in the Ter Llobregat, which means that it can move from an alert phase down to a pre-alert phase, allowing restrictions on water for irrigation and urban use to be lifted.

Spain to become older country dependent on immigration and pension spending, forecasts say

New demographic forecasts have shown that Spain is slowly but surely in a process of societal ageing that will bring about transformation in the country.

According to forecasts from Airef, an independent body responsible for ensuring the proper use of public resources in Spain, by the middle of the century Spain will have a population of 52 million — 3.4 million more than at the beginning of 2024.

A large proportion of this growth will come from migration, something experts argue is needed to sustain the economy. In terms of pension payments alone, Airef predicts that pension costs will be 25 percent higher than at present.

READ ALSO: Older and more diverse - What Spain's population will be like in 50 years

Madrid-Western Sahara flight threatens diplomatic spat

Direct flights from two European capitals to a city in a bitterly disputed north African territory have become the latest battleground in the conflict between a rebel group and Morocco.

Low-cost airlines have opened routes linking Madrid and Paris to Dakhla in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

Questions over the legality of the flights have thrown their future in doubt. The Polisario Front, which controls about 20 percent of the territory, has threatened legal action if the European carriers maintain the routes.

Morocco controls around 80 percent of Western Sahara, where the United Nations has had a peacekeeping mission since 1991 in what it considers a "non-self-governing territory".

The UN mission is meant to prepare a self-determination referendum for the territory, which is rich in fisheries and phosphates. But Morocco has refused to allow a vote in which independence is an option and the showdown has been frozen.

Spain pulled out of Western Sahara in 1975, but after decades of neutrality, in 2022 it backed Morocco's proposal that the territory be granted autonomous status under Moroccan rule. France followed suit in 2024.

Encouraged by incentives given by Moroccan authorities, Transavia, a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, began Paris-Dakhla flights while Irish budget airline Ryanair started flights from Madrid.

The Polisario Front opposes the flights. The movement's representative to UN agencies in Geneva, Oubi Bouchraya, told AFP that legal action was a possibility.

Moroccan authorities want to "impose a fait accompli of the occupation of Western Sahara by involving economic actors", Bouchraya said.

Any agreement regarding the territory must be approved by both parties involved, and the airlines "are operating outside international law", added the Polisario envoy.

The European Commission in December told the carriers the EU-Morocco aviation agreement "does not apply to routes connecting the territory of an EU member state to the territory of Western Sahara", he added.