The Permanent Deputation saves the 'anti-eviction' decree and the extension of rents and ends indefinite contracts

The housing decrees promoted by the Government after the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal have faced their final vote this Thursday, in a meeting of the Permanent Deputation marked by the hangover of the general strike for housing.

Contrary to what the Plenary Session of Congress did a month and a half ago, the Permanent Deputation has validated the decree suspending evictions and the extraordinary extension of rental contracts. No party has changed its position with respect to the vote at the beginning of October, but the lower representation of PP, Vox and Junts - which oppose this rule - in the Permanent Deputation has allowed the Government to save the text this time. The decree of indefinite rental contracts, on the other hand, has declined again, since the PNV has maintained its rejection.

If the vote at the beginning of October took place after a frenetic negotiation and with all eyes on Junts, on this occasion the script had been written for weeks and has been fulfilled. The only unknown that in recent weeks has weighed on the validation of the decrees was the date of their vote in the Permanent Deputation. The Congress Board, controlled by PSOE and Sumar, finally decided that it would be one day after the start of the 29-N electoral campaign and one day after the general strike called by the unions and the massive demonstrations in defense of the right to housing, and these mobilizations have fully entered the parliamentary debate, with praise from the left and criticism from the right.

The Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, dedicated the first words of the day to the general strike, applauding the fact that the "working people" took to the streets to "fight" for "what belongs to them" and condemned the police "violence", like the rest of the formations on the left of the PSOE - Podemos even asked for the resignation of the Minister of the Interior. "If you are not able to see the profound justice behind these mobilizations, (...) I think it is for two reasons: because it does not affect you, these concerns are not yours, and because, not being yours, you decide to defend the opposite interests, those of the employers and the vulture funds," he said, addressing the right. "The right to housing is going to make way and they would do well to realize it as soon as possible," he added, disgracing their rejection of what he considers "minimum measures."

The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, also applauded the mobilization and asked to repeat it on November 29 at the polls. "Yesterday the right to housing won in the streets and in the workplace and I hope it will also do so in the next elections," he said, while defending that the decree approved this Thursday is the result of eight years of government and stressed that "protecting the tenant and giving security to the small owner is not contradictory, but a necessity." "Those who today attack the right to strike and insult workers (...) are the same ones who insult those who defend the right to housing and those who, when faced with an electoral call, propose a failed model based on speculation," he insisted, promising a "tough hand" against speculation.

The reading diverges on the other side of the parliamentary arc. PP deputy Sergio Sayas described the strike as "hypocritical", accused the information pickets of "doing violence" and said that the only objective was to "mask those responsible for making housing impossible today." For his part, Vox deputy Carlos H. Quero described the call by the unions as "obscenity" and as having been imposed "from the BOE downwards."

Faced with the defense of the decrees by Bustinduy and Rodríguez, the PP promised to repeal the one that did go ahead and not only frontally rejected the content of the texts but also that they returned to Congress after the first no. "What we are experiencing here this morning is a fraud on democracy. The Government has sneaked in through the back door some decrees that Congress has already rejected," said Sayas, who described the maneuver as an "act of totalitarianism." Vox, which had also requested the cancellation of the vote on the decrees for the same reason, also harshly criticized the Government's "delirious proposals" and accused it of "sandwiching" the middle class.

Junts also reiterated its rejection of both texts. "They are pieces that only increase the problem," said Junts deputy Josep Maria Cruset, who believed that this Wednesday's mobilizations were against the Government. "When you say that you are protecting the small owner, it is wrong," responded ERC deputy Gabriel Rufián, who accused Puigdemont's party of being guided by the interests of the market and reproached the socialists for their lack of conviction to tackle the housing problem in this legislature. "We have to point out the PSOE," he asked the Minister of Social Rights.

The Council of Ministers approved again - with minimal modifications - the two texts promoted after the eviction of Maricarmen only four days after Congress initially overturned the decrees and one day after Pedro Sánchez called elections for November 29, taking advantage of the dissolution of the Cortes and the entry into play of the Permanent Deputation to achieve the validation of the first decree. This body is a kind of small-scale plenary session of Congress. Instead of 350 deputies, it is made up of 68 and, although it tries to replicate the same distribution of forces, the distribution by parties changes as the number of representatives is reduced. In this body, the bloc made up of the PSOE, the parties to its left and the PNV do have a majority, which were the ones who already unsuccessfully supported the broader decree in the first vote and this Thursday they did so again.

This has allowed the final approval of that text, which is the one that includes the bulk of the measures deployed by the Government after Maricarmen's eviction. It includes the suspension of evictions of vulnerable people until 2030, the extraordinary extension of rental contracts until 2028, the prohibition of buying housing from vulture funds until 2030, a new regulation of seasonal rentals, a 10% VAT for tourist apartments, tax incentives for landlords who rent below the market price and for low-income tenants and a loan mechanism of up to 50,000 euros to facilitate purchasing your first home. All of these measures, "insufficient" both for PNV and for the parties to the left of the PSOE despite their support, have already been in force for five weeks and will continue to be so after the final approval of the Permanent Deputation.

The decree on indefinite rental contracts, which establishes the obligation to compensate the landlord if the contract is terminated without justified cause, was also published in the BOE on October 7. However, it has not come into force—nor will it after being rejected by the Permanent Deputation—because, in anticipation of the lack of support to carry it forward, the Government has already established that it would only come into force if it was validated, to avoid a temporary application. The PNV has insisted that, in its opinion, it is "counterproductive", generates greater insecurity, a reduction in rental supply and harms small property owners. "In the face of major challenges like housing, we do not need confrontation," warned PNV deputy Maribel Vaquero.