The Government, harassed by various political and judicial fronts, faces a special plenary session in Congress this Wednesday with the problem of the housing crisis almost as a single issue, which will also bring together the maximum and critical demands of almost all of his progressive partners in the investiture. Sumar, the other part of the government coalition, came to warn this Tuesday that it considers this debate and how the Executive and in particular its Minister of Housing, the socialist Isabel Rodríguez, as a moment of “crossroads for the legislature.” The warning tone was similarly forceful on the part of other usual allies, such as ERC, Podemos, EH Bildu or the BNG. They demand concrete and urgent measures now, very aimed at the intervention of public powers in the market. The PSOE maintains that it takes these warnings seriously, and remembers that the president, Pedro Sánchez, has already stated that he wants to convert this legislature into that of the right to housing, and lists the actions carried out. But his spokesman in Congress, Patxi López, who will speak in this Wednesday’s debate on behalf of her party, He told his supporters on the left that the historical shortcomings in housing will not be solved only with actions or public investment and advocated for agreements and collaboration with all administrations and also with the private sector.
Congress will thus transfer to a special plenary session this Wednesday the growing citizen unrest about this transversal problem by accepting the request raised by ERC, EH Bildu, Podemos and the BNG in the Mixed Group with a specific appearance by the Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, “to give explanations in relation to the Government’s inaction and lack of measures aimed at enabling citizens’ access to decent housing” and to question statements by the head of that department in which she appealed “to the solidarity of owners as a way to contain the rise in rental prices”. The session arrives in another critical moment of the legislature and one day after the president, Pedro Sánchez, once again convened different groups, entities, organizations and groups related to housing in La Moncloa to find out their demands and after confirming in the latest CIS survey that this lack is already in the podium of the main concerns of the Spanish.
“It will not be an easy or simple plenary session for the Minister of Housing,” They anticipate from Sumar, the formation led by Yolanda Díaz from the Government, who this Tuesday acknowledged that on this point they maintain a “very important disagreement” with the PSOE. Díaz insisted on Sumar’s idea, which is supported by ERC or Podemos, that “we must intervene in the market” from the Government and took the opportunity to warn the PP and specifically the 11 autonomous communities where they govern that if they do not stop boycotting the Housing Law to define, for example, stressed areas, where to limit rental prices, the Executive should “condition state funds” until that standard is met.
The first socio-theoretician who wanted to warn the Government that it will make “the weight” of the support or lack of support of its four deputies for the negotiation of the next General State Budgets and related it to very specific demands regarding housing was Podemos, which He has been strategically and progressively distancing himself from the PSOE and Sumar for weeks. His deputy, Javier Sánchez Serna, thus delved into some conditions which its general secretary, Ione Belarra, had anticipated the day before. Sánchez Serna specified that they will not approve future public accounts if the Government does not lower the housing rental price by law by 40%, taking as a reference the last contract for the property in municipalities with more than 200,000 inhabitants and in which it has increased by 35% compared to the average. Podemos also proposes prohibiting the purchase of housing that is not for residential use, forcing owners to live in the houses acquired for at least the first four years with the possibility of renting them later and ending the “impunity of vacancy companies.” with changes in the Penal Code so that the “violent, coercive and intimidating” attitudes of these companies are classified as hate crimes.
In ERC, which shares many of these positions, they took advantage of the day and the climate of general concern with housing to register with their quota of law proposals an initiative that PP, Vox and Junts knocked down three weeks ago to regulate temporary rentals. Then Junts distanced itself from that vote at the last minute, to note that it is not in any legislative block, but the Republicans and other allies have negotiated discreetly in recent days to tweak and extend the period of those temporary contracts from six to nine months, which made it easier for Carles Puigdemont’s seven deputies in Madrid to turn around. ERC deputy, Pilar Vallugeraappreciated that with this adjustment, which could be voted on and taken into consideration in just another month, one of the black holes or “escape valves” verified in this period since the approval, just over a year ago, of the first housing law of this democratic stage.
Patxi López, on the stand
Patxi López will defend the Government this Wednesday, which shows in the election of the spokesperson the relevance that the PSOE gives to the debate. López will make an intervention that is more political than technical, as he anticipated this Tuesday, after studying in detail the case of public actions carried out for decades in the city of Vienna, which is considered the example of success. Vienna has one million social housing units, its City Council has control of almost 50% of this housing stock and invests about 400 million euros in this area each year. The socialist leader emphasized that the Sánchez Government “is not even remotely the same nor does it do the same thing” as the right-wing executives and highlighted that in this complex issue that involves so many different sectors, we are not starting from scratch either. It was when he boasted that a Ministry of Housing was established, the 400 million invested by Mariano Rajoy’s Executive was multiplied by eight compared to the current 3.5 billion, 180,000 rental homes have been promised by the end of the legislature (81,000 already in march), 66,000 rental vouchers have been given to young people or 6,000 million have been provided to the ICO for loans.
The PSOE spokesperson, of course, wanted to advance his partners who are more in favor of interventionism or critical of private landlords who, in the face of those ideas that he sees as somewhat “outdated”, in reality “90% of those who rent homes are small owners and not “Everyone is dedicated to speculating.” López clarified there that the PSOE is committed to agreeing and collaborating between all the administrations that have powers in the matter and also with private operators because otherwise “we won’t even get around the corner.” Íñigo Errejón, from Sumar, carefully measured his words in the uncomfortable “tile” in which they move in their formation, being within the Government, but pressured from the left by Podemos, but he stressed: “We are going to be very attentive and pending of the intervention and proposals of the Minister of Housing, it has to come with solutions, not with excuses or Bizums, because it is at a crossroads on which the legislature can depend for the PSOE.”
