Pressmaster/ShutterstockHousing shortages and soaring rents are central to Spain’s upcoming general election. As each party presents voters with ways of addressing the crisis, far right party Vox is backing a simple solution: the principle of prioridad nacional, or “national priority”, which would put Spaniards first in line to receive government benefits.The policy is central to Vox’s programme. It proposes expanding social housing with priority for Spanish nationals, alongside deregulation and tax reductions.It is presented as a common sense solution, but national priority does not actually address the root causes of scarcity. In fact, it could even make them worse. The housing crisis, like many crises, has winners as well as losers: while tenants struggle, landlords collect higher rents and enjoy rising asset values. National priority does not change or tackle these underlying inequalities. Instead, it merely ranks neighbours by entitlement to assistance, while also sowing the seeds of social division. Leer más: From Melbourne to Madrid, housing is shaping modern politics. But who benefits? Turning belonging into policyNational priority echoes France’s préférence nationale, promoted by the National Front under Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1980s, as well as Catalonia’s far-right slogan primer els de casa (“our own people first”). It makes preferential treatment seem natural, but obscures differences in ownership and wealth: a Spanish tenant and a Spanish landlord may share nationality, but not economic interests.The policy has already been adopted in the region of Valencia, which is currently governed by a coalition of the conservative People’s Party (PP) and Vox. In July 2026, the principle was incorporated into regional housing and social legislation.Rather than simply sorting applicants by nationality, the rules translate belonging into administrative criteria. These include residence histories, schooling, employment and social security contributions.Under Valencia’s rules, applicants must demonstrate five years of historical registration within the Valencian Community to enter the register for protected rental housing, and ten years for protected housing purchases. Criteria for allocating public housing also include ten years of registered residence – either in the region or in Spain – which applicants may establish through a parent’s registration history.National priority also affects access to other benefits, including social services and the region’s minimum-income benefit, where three years are required. It may soon extend to other assistance.These distinctions are not entirely new. Spain’s national immigration law already allocates some rights by immigration status, while housing and benefit systems use residence and registration requirements. National priority builds on this framework, tightening conditions and giving existing distinctions an explicitly nationalist basis.Valencia is no national blueprint, but it does show how hardline nationalist preferences can be presented as a pragmatic, “common sense”, nationality-neutral way of distributing scarce resources. In reality, the policy will deny welfare to people who need it most. Residents who spend years in unstable housing or irregular employment – many of them undocumented migrants – may find themselves unable to apply altogether, even once they pass the threshold. Leer más: US and European economies depend heavily on immigrants – decades of data reveal just how much Who gets protection?National priority speaks to real anxieties – Can my wages cover the rent? Will my kids ever be able to leave home? – but recasts these concerns as broken reciprocity. The message is this: established residents spend years contributing, only for migrants to swoop in and claim housing and benefits that they haven’t earned. But whose contribution counts?Migrants also work, pay taxes and provide care. Informal work or unpaid care may go unrecognised by institutions, while those unable to work cannot establish contribution records. None of this reduces a person’s need for housing.There is a further economic dimension. Housing and labour markets are already divided by unequal rights and opportunities. Immigration status and racial discrimination can restrict access to secure employment and decent housing, leaving some people less able to refuse low wages, excessive rents or poor working and living conditions. Leer más: Spain’s housing crisis is a warning for all of Europe – rights mean nothing if they’re not enforced These limitations can benefit employers who depend on workers with weak bargaining power, and landlords whose tenants have few alternatives. Exclusion from public support can deepen these relationships. Someone denied housing assistance must still find somewhere to live; someone without income support must still earn enough to pay rent.Preferential assistance may offer material benefits to some, and additional social housing could alleviate shortages. But increasing supply, allocating assistance and changing the power relations between tenants and landlords are all separate objectives. National priority achieves only one of them.And the consequences of national priority do not stop at public waiting lists.Living together on unequal termsNational priority risks reinforcing two interconnected divisions: between those who own property and those who depend on it for shelter; and between residents whose rights are secure and those whose access to protection is conditional or restricted.These inequalities already exist, but strengthening residence-based preferences and presenting them as protection for “our own people” gives them greater institutional and political weight. They also interact. Residents with fewer entitlements may be less able to reject exploitative work or housing conditions, which benefits employers and landlords.Neighbours who face similar housing difficulties may therefore come to compete for assistance on unequal terms, seeing one another as rivals for scarce resources rather than recognising a shared interest in affordable housing. Encampments protesting for the right to housing, like the one pictured here in Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol, have taken over many Spanish city centres. Barcex/wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA On a material level, a Spanish tenant struggling to pay rent likely has more in common with a foreign tenant than with a Spanish property investor. Yet national priority directs attention towards differences of belonging rather than these shared economic circumstances.This has implications for what the Spanish call convivencia – the everyday practice of coexisting across differences. When the state differentiates residents according to perceived belonging or worthiness, these distinctions enter ordinary relationships. People experiencing similar insecurities may come to blame each other for their difficulties, rather than questioning the conditions that produce them.This could be especially damaging in neighbourhoods already marked by housing and employment insecurity.The measures have faced considerable resistance at all levels. Spain’s national law guarantees basic social services regardless of immigration status. EU rules also protect long-term residents’ equal treatment, including in housing. In October, the European Commission reiterated relevant EU obligations, but did not rule directly on Valencia’s law.In Valencia, a network of 110 development organisations has opposed national priority, warning that it divides residents rather than addressing shared needs. Opposition parties in the regional parliament have also strongly condemned the rules, calling them “apartheid enshrined in law”. National priority may move some people forward in the queue, but it will not reduce the power of those who control housing and employment. It also risks reinforcing economic inequalities, and threatens the convivencia that underpins society.The housing crisis will not be solved by simply deciding who gets and does not get protection. National priority cannot truly address the sources of insecurity, and its main effect will be to deepen social division. If it were implemented on a national level, it would leave Spain – and any other countries that follow suit – much more unequal, and more divided. A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!Martin Lundsteen is a member of the Observatori d'Antropologia del Conflicte Urbà (Observatory on the Anthropology of Urban Conflict). He receives funding from MICIU/AEI /10.13039/501100011033, and from FSE+.