The PNV has announced that it will give its "critical" support to the first housing decree approved in the Council of Ministers because it "protects vulnerable people" and "improves the situation of small owners", but will reject the second decree with the automatic renewal of rents.
In a statement, the Basque party explained that it considers the text a "one-off patch with many shortcomings" and maintains serious reservations regarding the "real" impact of the rule, while censuring the Government for legislating "in the heat."
On the contrary, the PNV parliamentarians "will vote against the decree that aims at the automatic renewal of contracts because it represents an attack on the small owner and will retract the offer, which in Euskadi depends on them by more than 90%."
In this way, with the PNV's support for the first decree, all the pressure and all eyes are on Junts, which so far does not guarantee to support any of the housing decrees 24 hours before the decisive vote, and whose votes are essential. The decision will be made at a meeting of the leadership of the independence party that will take place throughout this Thursday, but sources from the neo-convergent executive emphasize their distance from the texts agreed between the PSOE and Sumar, the two members of the Government.
"The Government lies. We are not afraid of burning ourselves to defend the families and small owners of Catalonia," said sources told this newspaper before starting the decisive conclave of the party in which the leadership will define the exact meaning of the vote. The same sources emphasize how "the royal decree neither includes protection for the small owner (by forcing him to compensate for a possible non-renewal of the rent) nor does it stop vulture funds", these being two essential conditions for Junts to support the decree. Both were hand-delivered three weeks ago to Pedro Sánchez, before the social and political crisis broke out due to the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal.
Junts was "reasonably satisfied" with the guidelines on the decrees that La Moncloa announced to the media on Monday, but that understanding was completely broken after pressure from left-wing forces that led to the two decrees agreed between the PSOE and Sumar. "He accepts the occupations as good," the Junts negotiators defend in conversation with this newspaper.
Sources close to Junts consulted by EL MUNDO highlight the contraindications that the drafting of the two so-called 'Maricarmen decrees' has for an important part of its followers, small landowners. "A problem that the Administration has to solve should not fall on small landowners," they say in the context of this training.
One of Junts' problems is that the final wording is not in accordance with what was negotiated before the Council of Ministers last Tuesday, when the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, told them that it would focus on the so-called "vulture funds", leaving small property owners safe. This has not been the case and in the parliamentary group led by Míriam Nogueras, Article 1 of the first decree - which the Government believes Junts can support - already weighs because it affects every Catalan SME. "From the entry into force of this royal decree-law and until December 31, 2028, any entity with or without legal personality, which includes the acquisition of real estate in its corporate purpose, will be limited in the acquisition of a home, free of charge or for consideration for a price less than seventy percent of its market appraisal value." An enormous majority of Catalan SMEs have the acquisition of real estate as their corporate purpose.
Protests from Catalan SME associations also weigh on Junts. What happened this Wednesday in the Pimec employers' association was significant, which issued a statement against the decrees for reducing the rental offer, the opposite of what was necessary. Nogueras participated yesterday in the Pimec awards gala, which took place at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona and defended that same message to the business community, that they are not "afraid to burn themselves to defend the families and owners of Catalonia." As they already did, he stressed, by opposing the reduction in working hours, "which would have done a lot of damage to small and medium-sized Catalan companies." "We are aware that these are not easy decisions, nor are they too high-profile, but, I insist, we are not afraid of getting burned," Nogueras told the business community, to whom he also criticized the existence of "a lot of demagoguery and populism." "We will remain, even if we are alone, in Madrid defending Catalan families and businessmen," he concluded. According to sources present at the gala, "all the small businessmen were against the decrees," and a climate was created that was "very uncomfortable for Salvador Illa," the president of the Generalitat, who also attended.
The Junts deputy responsible for housing, Marta Madrenas, is also receiving calls against the approval. She herself is a real estate agent and her union is radically against the decrees due to their negative effects on the market.
