The most forgotten phrase of our Constitution is hidden, as a cruel paradox, within the most cited article of all, article 47, which enshrines the right of citizens to enjoy decent and adequate housing. After that, the Magna Carta indisputably obliges public powers to regulate "the use of land in accordance with the general interest to prevent speculation." And that phrase - which read today, like that, makes you laugh - is key to solving the great economic pandemic of access to housing.
Because speculation is not avoided by plugging the multiple legal leaks in the rental market based on royal decrees, but, effectively, by mobilizing the land "in accordance with the general interest." Making it available to demand with a flood of affordable public housing that puts downward pressure on prices. And that it can never go out on the free market.
And that, of course, is not going to happen. Although on paper there is hope for a State pact, there is no political will to recover the consensus that forged our systemic architecture. Precisely, that is, after housing, the second major problem in Spain: the watertight compartmentalization of the two political blocs. Crossing the border of the "wall" is now a thing for traitors. Or, worse, faint-hearted.
For this reason, before approving the two decrees, government sources acknowledged to EL MUNDO that they have done studies, estimates, reports... and they do not see it possible to give public housing the boost it deserves. Not even the one that Pedro Sánchez promised. The lack of social apartments "is a problem that is impossible to solve in the short and medium term," they say privately. «We have looked at everything and analyzed everything. There is no manpower to build, it is not easy and it is not so easy to launch the park that is needed," they point out. "In the long term, a State pact is needed and right now it is impossible."
And in the PP? "Nothing to agree with this Sanchista PSOE." There will be no State agreement: neither Sánchez is going to offer it nor is Feijóo going to accept it. Even less so when Abascal is already pressuring him with the brilliant idea of deporting immigrants so that Spaniards have access to cheaper apartments. By mathematical discard.
Now there is no choice but to distribute cards again in the general elections and see where the voters turn out. Consensus is a thing of the past and cannot be seen in the (very) long term. Meanwhile, Moncloa celebrates having largely saved the situation of indignation of its electorate with the two decrees that respond to the eviction of Maricarmen, and the PSOE clings to the "miracle" of bringing together Junts and Podemos, opposite but arithmetically inseparable, at the same time.
The housing crisis is not going to be solved with one decree or two, even if they are necessary for temporary social protection, to calm tempers or to clear Puerta del Sol (something that does not seem so easy). They are palliative measures that respond to a social demand, but they are not enough. Not even close. Because the big problem is not demand, but lack of supply, fundamentally public. Only a gigantic park of social apartments for rent, for rent, would provide a fair solution to the real estate ruin of the Spanish.
20 years ago, at the peak of the bubble, this public park thing was only proposed by IU. They called them Bolsheviks, dirigistes, statists. Or crazy. Julio Anguita always replied that the truly revolutionary thing was to comply with the Constitution. About the land and the "general interest" and things like that. Two decades later, even the PP agrees to boost the construction of affordable houses. And an absolute majority of Congress advocates for a new land law that speeds up urban planning processes and increases affordable supply, by multiplying the workforce of technicians dedicated to speeding up construction and building a real public park. In the long term, of course, but without postponing it even one more day.
And yet, all this discursive fireworks on the brick are not going to crystallize into a great agreement.
The data hurts. In Spain, more than 200,000 new families are created every year and only 95,000 homes are built annually, so the deficit in apartments does not stop growing. In fact, the Bank of Spain is already talking about a mismatch of more than 700,000 homes. We must build three times as much as now, and do so with affordable and public typologies. Only in this way will the price be pressured downwards. Only in this way will the crisis be alleviated. Without exclusive partisanship and with a sense of State, another of those expressions that have already become pure mythology. And they make you laugh.
