Spain set to agree measures to stop evictions after suicide One measure would be to grant grace periods, Spanish media reported. Rajoy said the rules would not be retroactive, while Rubalcaba called for previous evictions to be included. There have been nearly 400,000 evictions in Spain since a property bubble burst in 2008. Unemployment hit 25 per cent in the third quarter, a record high and the European Commission expects the economy to contract 1.4 per cent this year and next as the second recession since the end of 2009 drags on. Last week, European Union Advocate General Juliane Kokott issued a non-binding report concluding that Spanish legislation on evictions contradicts European norms for protecting consumer rights. Europe's highest court will now have to deliver an opinion. Jose Miguel Domingo, a news-stand owner in Granada, in southern Spain, hung himself on Oct 25, before he was due to lose his home, local media reported. The same week an unemployed man in Burjassot, a town in the eastern region of Valencia, threw himself off a balcony on the day his family was to be evicted from their apartment. Reports said the man survived the fall.