The Government parties have reached an agreement to approve two royal decrees on housing laws and “respond to the demands of citizens and advance rights.” The negotiation has been prolonged and has forced the Council of Ministers to be delayed for an hour. Yesterday the minority partner sent a proposal to the PSOE with a new draft that contemplated, among other measures, the inclusion of the regulation of room rental; automatic renewal of contracts; and strengthen protection against evictions. The spokesperson for Junts, Miriam Nogueras, accused Sumar this Tuesday of “leaving the small owner out in the cold” in the negotiation for the housing decree that the Government partners are currently addressing. The Executive assumes that the decree will not completely satisfy anyone, but the important thing is that it be validated within a few weeks. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters wake up this Tuesday in Puerta del Sol after a third night of camping to pressure the Government to respond to the housing crisis.
The housing measures agreed upon by the Government are divided into two different decrees.
The agreement reached by PSOE and Sumar on housing includes two royal decree laws, according to Executive sources. The meeting of the Council of Ministers began after 10:30, one hour after the scheduled time. The Government does not want to detail the content of the pact until the press appearance after the Council, scheduled to start at one in the afternoon. The ministers who will take part in the roundtable will be, in addition to the spokesperson Elma Saiz, the first vice president and Minister of Economy, Carlos Corpo; the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez; and the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres. The Government today also approves the extension until the end of the year of the social shield due to the effects of the war in Iran on inflation, which has risen from 4.3% to 4.9% in the last month. In February, before the conflict, it was 2.3%.
Much expectation in Sol regarding the housing decree.
In Sol, in the camping area, they are awaiting the decree that comes out of the Council of Ministers and there is a lot of expectation. Some incidents are occurring in the surrounding area with people coming to argue.
Around 11:00 a.m., tension grew in the area, when several people who were passing through confronted several of the campers. They have begun to scold them and tell them that they have to pay taxes to alleviate the housing problem. The discussion ended with a small confrontation and an argument in which the people from the camp threw them out shouting "fascists out of our neighborhoods." In both cases the police have intervened.
The Minister of Housing will appear at the press conference of the Council of Ministers at 1:00 p.m.
The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, will participate in the press conference after the Council of Ministers, scheduled for this Tuesday at 1:00 p.m., after PSOE and Sumar, the parties in the Government coalition, have agreed to approve a royal decree with measures on housing. In addition to the Minister Spokesperson, Elma Saiz, the First Vice President and Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, who will give details of the social shield measures for the war in Iran, and the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, will also appear.
Sumar, on the housing decree: “There is room for hope.”
“There is room for hope,” declared Sumar's deputy spokesperson, Alberto Ibáñez, minutes after learning that the Government partners have reached an agreement on the housing decree that the Council of Ministers approves this Tuesday, a meeting that has been delayed due to conversations between ministers. "We will not have a problem when we have the text to answer specific questions, but we do not know the definitive text at this time. We know that the royal decree has to be forceful against speculation. What happened with the housing law, with room for seasonal rentals, cannot happen," said Ibáñez, also a Compromís deputy, at a press conference.
"Something has moved in this country in recent days. More than a year ago we presented a law to move towards indefinite rentals. Today there is common sense on the street that says that we must work for contracts that are automatically renewed when the tenant pays on time and the owner has no need to use it," he added.
"For the agreement to be viable it has to generate stability for the tenants. I trust that the Government of Spain will not be able to fail us," he noted. Sumar's parliamentary spokesperson, Verónica Barbero, has canceled her scheduled appearance this morning.
Vox accuses the Government of being “the only one responsible for the housing crisis.”
The parliamentary spokesperson for Vox, Pepa Millán, assured this Tuesday that “the Government and the partners are the only ones responsible for the housing crisis.” The deputy pointed out at a press conference in Congress that the Executive "intends to fix in half an hour with a decree what they have not done in eight years."
He has also pointed out that "the Government has created ideal conditions so that one can speculate on housing because one does not speculate with what is left over, but with what is scarce." Millán has made it clear that Vox does not expect any changes with the decree that is being negotiated in the Council of Ministers. And he stressed: "The housing problem cannot be solved by imposing the Government's ideology. A housing policy is necessary that welcomes all Spaniards in decent conditions."
The Malaga Tenants Union: “The camping responds to the feelings of society.”
The camp that has remained since last night in the Plaza de la Constitución in Malaga is organized to remain "as long as necessary", according to sources from the Malaga Tenants' Union. “All this is related to Maricarmen, but it responds to the feelings of society,” Carmela Olmedo, spokesperson for the union, has just explained, denouncing “the lack of activity” of the Government to end the housing problem. The organizers are already preparing an agenda of workshops and meetings, in addition to an assembly that, at 7:00 p.m., will serve to continue making decisions.
PSOE and Sumar reach an agreement to approve the housing decree.
The Government parties have reached an agreement to approve the housing measures and “respond to the demands of citizens and advance rights,” according to Government sources.
Ione Belarra: “The only thing the Government proposes is a patch, a real joke.”
The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has called the package of measures proposed by the Government in the housing decree that it plans to approve this Tuesday and on which there is still no agreement between the partners as a “patch” and a “joke.” "People are saying that there have to be structural changes that allow us to put an end to speculation. The Government is not proposing a single structural measure, but rather the same old ones that no longer work after rents have risen by 40%, 50% or 60%," he said at a press conference in Congress.
"We have conveyed to the Government that it is out of touch with reality, that this decree is very far from what the people are asking for. As it is, there is no way to take it. It is time to continue promoting the mobilizations," criticized the deputy, for whom the Executive "copies Podemos's measures from five years ago." “Those measures were valid then,” added Belarra, who advocates expropriating the use of housing in the hands of vulture funds to incorporate them into the public rental housing stock and, in addition, lowering rents by law.
The party leader has also been against dividing the decree to achieve consensus on some measures. “We already know that when a decree is cut into pieces it is to drop the most ambitious part,” he rejected without clarifying what the position of his four deputies will be when the battery of measures reaches the Lower House.
Bilbao joins the mobilizations to demand solutions to the housing problem.
Since last Monday night, a group of citizens has set up a camp in Plaza Arriaga in Bilbao to denounce the housing problem and demand solutions. With this protest, Bilbao joins the mobilizations that have been taking place since Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman, was evicted from her home last week, which has provoked a citizen response with initiatives such as a camp out in Puerta del Sol in Madrid.
In the capital of Biscay, early this Tuesday morning a total of eight tents were installed in front of the Arriaga theater, an initiative organized mainly through social networks to demand solutions to the housing problem. The camping began this past Monday night, with signs that read “Stop vulture funds,” “All landlords are bastards,” “Maricarmen we are all” or “For the revolutionary strike, the right to decent housing now,” among others.
The participants, around a dozen people, have explained that they have organized this camp independently and self-managed and calls are being made through social networks, a WhatsApp group and by “word of mouth” for people to join this initiative. “We hope to fill Plaza Arriaga and we will be there until we can,” they stated.
According to one of the members, before Maricarmen's eviction the situation was already "unbearable" and, after what happened, "a point has been reached" in which the housing problem is "unsustainable" and "it seems that being a rentier is a right before being a human person with the right to have a house." Likewise, he explained that the participants in the protest are homeless people and, in their case, they live in a place without a occupancy certificate "because there is no house to live in" with their income. As he pointed out, this is now “an ultimatum” for the Maricarmen decree to be approved with measures to facilitate access to housing. As he has pointed out, we do not come to this life “to be slaves” who seem to want people “medicated, crammed into small, very expensive houses and in jobs with precarious salaries.”
"Life is not that. Life is not having a capitalist boss who oppresses you and a speculator landlord. Life is much longer and much more powerful. And people have to wake up once and for all," he added. Another of the participants in the protest has denounced that “what drags down” the housing problem is that there are salaries that “do not provide anything, that limit your life.” As he noted, he has been to 12 countries and has never seen one “more busted than this one” with “impossible” housing prices.
The Council of Ministers begins to debate the housing decree one hour late.
The Council of Ministers in which the Government will debate the housing decree began around 10:30, an hour later than planned. The ministers of the PSOE and Sumar have been negotiating in La Moncloa until the last moment to finalize the details of the agreement. The meeting was scheduled for 9:30. Sources from Sumar reported early in the morning that the negotiations have continued throughout the night.
Micó considers the housing decree the “last opportunity for the PSOE” to demonstrate its usefulness in the Government.
Àgueda Micó, Compromís deputy in the Mixed Group, puts pressure on the PSOE and maintains that the royal housing decree is the “last opportunity” that this party has to “demonstrate that it is worth it for them to be in the Government.”
Micó assures that the socialists are “very comfortable” blaming the PNV and Junts for not being able to take more ambitious measures regarding housing. The post-convergents assured yesterday the distance of an agreement because they "accepted the occupations." The Compromís deputy encourages the PSOE to “be brave” so that these right-wing formations are the ones that “portray themselves” so that citizens “know who to vote for.”
Regarding the possibility of approving two differentiated packages of measures to ensure the approval of the measures that arouse greater consensus, Micó is against it and even raises the option of approving more royal decrees if this one fails in Congress.
Miriam Nogueras, spokesperson for Junts: “Sumar wants to leave the small owner out in the cold.”
The spokesperson for Junts in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, stated in an interview on TVE that her party “continues with its door open” to support the royal decree law on housing, but attributes the discrepancies of its formation to the lack of greater protection for small property owners. "It seems that there is a veto from the partners, from Sumar, who do not accept the protection of small landowners. Sumar wants to leave them out in the cold," he said.
Nogueras has shared that all parties must be “generous” and has recalled that among the measures that his party delivered to the Government are that rents and mortgages be deducted and that the VAT on housing construction be reduced, among other measures.
Sol's camp awaits the approval of the decree: "It cannot be that every few years our lives change because a rentier wants to get rich."
Valeria Racu, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants' Union, pointed out from Puerta del Sol that this Tuesday the first Council of Ministers since...
