Three provisions struck down

Spain's Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional) ruled on 22 October on an appeal filed by the central government, headed by Pedro Sánchez, against article 17, the first final provision and the fourth additional provision of Valencia's coastal protection law, Law 3/2025 of 22 May. The court declared article 17 and the first final provision unconstitutional, but only insofar as they apply to assets within the maritime-terrestrial public domain. It also declared the fourth additional provision unconstitutional and null, the clause that lets the Generalitat draw up an inventory of degraded land within that domain. The ruling was written by the court's vice president, Inmaculada Montalbán Huertas, as rapporteur. The court said its task is the abstract review of legal norms, not an examination of what the legislator intended.

Why the court acted

The court accepted that the Valencian region can protect the cultural, historical and ethnological values of coastal urban cores, even where they sit on public maritime land, but said that protection cannot limit state powers over that land. In its view, the law goes further than recognising those values. It allows special plans with conservation measures and places the cores under Valencia's cultural heritage regime, which brings conservation duties and restrictions on demolishing protected buildings. Where those measures touch public maritime land, they could stop the State from acting to protect and recover the coast under coastal legislation. The provisions were therefore struck down without being voided, so they can still apply on other stretches of the coast where no competence conflict arises.

The Babilonia colony at the centre of the case

The case concerns the Babilonia colony in Guardamar del Segura, in Alicante, where demolitions had been ordered by final court rulings and were pending execution. The State's legal service, the Abogacía del Estado, raised the objection that the court examined. According to EL PAÍS, rising sea levels and sand loss from increasingly frequent storms have left waves hitting the facades of part of the colony's hundred houses. The Republican government created the colony in 1934. The coastal service, relying on a report from the Cedex public works centre, urged its demolition in 2018, which set off a series of residents' lawsuits that reached a Supreme Court ruling in February 2023.

Valencia's response and the opposition

The president of the Generalitat, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, said the ruling "does not say that our law is not valid" and described his own stance as "very prudent". He said the Consell would study the judgment, which he had not yet been able to read in full.

“We will have to read it and analyse the content.”

Llorca argued that the court questioned whether a regional government should protect those cores, not whether they deserve protection at all. He defended the regional law on the grounds that the State is failing to protect the residents.

“We made a law because the State is not fulfilling that protection of the homes and of the people affected.”

Government departments led by Vicente Martínez Mus said they would analyse every legal avenue to protect coastal urban cores of special ethnological value. They complained that the court's communication reached the media before the Generalitat received it. They added that the ruling does not close the door to protection through state legislation, and that the rest of the law remains in force. The Socialist party in Valencia (PSPV) demanded Martínez Mus's resignation, accusing him of creating false expectations and confronting the central government.

Key dates

The timeline runs from the colony's creation in 1934 through the 2018 demolition call and the February 2023 Supreme Court ruling to the 22 May 2025 date of the regional law. It ends with the Constitutional Court's ruling on 22 October 2026. The sequence shows how the demolition order and the regional law came before the constitutional challenge.