Junts is reaffirming, every week and in each plenary session or commission, the soccer maxim of cholismo (which is constantly repeated by the Atlético de Madrid coach) that they will negotiate on each point on the Congress agenda with the Government and the PSOE without ascribing to no block and only thinking about what interests Catalonia. Sometimes these negotiations end in votes that encourage the hopes of the PP and other times they save the Executive. in the extremes. This Tuesday the party led by Carles Puigdemont ultimately chose to save one more thing and plug some holes that have been observed in the housing law already in force. Junts, but also the PNV, accepted that the norm begins its parliamentary path to be able to debate some aspects, especially with regard to the possible interference in the powers of the autonomies in matters of housing, but without predicting what their final vote will be. . The left’s bill has passed with 176 in favor and 169 against.
At the end of her speech before the plenary session, the Junts deputy, Marta Madrenas, advanced her vote in favor to allow at least in the coming months to start. Junts overturned that initiative in September and thus anticipated its strategy of giving the Government a hard time until the limit to make it clear that he is not just another partner, despite allowing the investiture of Pedro Sánchez a year ago and now claiming a question of trust regarding his work. Madrenas, in any case, warned that in the process that is now open for amendments. Junts’ decision comes in a few days full of warnings and warnings from the formation led by Carles Puigdemont to the Government and the PSOE and when Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s PP is sponsoring maximum contacts to provide the greatest number of parliamentary defeats possible to the Central executive in a climate of noise and corruption scandals.
The bill, which was once presented by Yolanda Díaz’s formation and which ERC re-registered in October, now introduces several changes to attract Junts and reduce the misgivings of the PNV, which were very similar. Firstly, the duration of seasonal contracts is extended from six to nine months, a change that takes into account the teaching calendar and is essential for the group of teachers, according to parliamentary sources. The new text eliminates the proposal that allowed tenants to sublease the apartment or transfer the contract to another, a clause that gives security to the landlord. And, above all, it incorporates an additional provision that specifies that these modifications will not invade autonomous powers: “In the cases of the Autonomous Communities that have developed their own legislation on this matter pursuant to article 148.1.3 of the Spanish Constitution, it will apply the regional regulations, thus respecting the division of powers.”
The Sumar deputy and housing activist, Gala Pin, emphasized in a very emotional intervention the strong ideas instilled in these years by the Tenants’ Union that were later repeated by the different spokespersons for ERC, EH Bildu, Podemos and BNG. Pin pointed out the “fatigue, desperation, helplessness and feeling of abandonment” of citizens regarding the administrations from which they claim their right to decent and affordable housing and contrasted the enormous difference and legal and fiscal protection that is now provided to the large owners, vulture funds, lobbies and real estate companies in the face of the precariousness of young people and vulnerable families who cannot afford the rent increases.
The representative of Sumar, as did later especially the spokesperson and general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, took advantage of her speech to reproach the PSOE for offering itself so late to address the shortcomings recorded in the housing law approved in May 2023. Belarra He disqualified the improvement as “a crumb” in the face of “the violence of the rentiers” against the tenants and once again reproached the PSOE for its lack of courage and the legislative setbacks since Podemos no longer is in the Government.
Pilar Vallugera, from ERC, focused her intervention on giving a wake-up call to the PSOE and the left-wing partners of the investiture bloc so that “it can really be noticed in the people” who are in the Government and boasted that the restrictions it established The housing law for rental prices, especially in stressed areas, has only been applied in Catalonia and Barcelona, which was used to claim the independent republic of that territory. The spokesperson for EH Bildu, Oskar Matute, formulated a fiery defense of the intervention of the rental market and justified it with what is already happening by the State in health and education to ensure the provision of this service free of charge for everyone. .
The presentations of the PNV deputy and Junts were very similar in substance, but with a different tone. The Basque Maribel Vaquero recalled “the competence attack” of the previous drafting of the norm and her warnings that the housing law could cause legal insecurity and fear of non-payment in 85% of small homeowners. The PNV will present amendments to try to improve the new law. The Junts deputy estimated the decrease in rental apartments that this rule generated between 19% and 23%.
PP and Vox spoke out against it. The popular deputy, Joan Mesquida, devoted more space to attacking Bildu and the PSOE, in this case for the alleged cases of corruption in President Sánchez’s entourage, than to exposing his reasons against the proposal, which above all he questioned for its “interventionism.” ” and for the transfers to its partners.
