Citizen indignation with the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, an unrest that has crystallized with demonstrations throughout Spain and a new camp in Puerta del Sol 15 years after 15-M, has become an asset of political pressure that could achieve the impossible: the support of the majority of Congress for the housing decree law that the Government planned to approve before the summer and was forced to suspend sine die due to the crossed vetoes of the partners. The symbolism of Maricarmen's eviction from the apartment in which she lived most of her life represents “a turning point,” as recognized by ministers and leaders of the progressive bloc. And Pedro Sánchez, aware of the window that has opened, is not willing to waste a unique opportunity.
The president, who like the rest of the participants in a PSOE rally in Getafe (Madrid) has not made any allusion, implicit or direct, to the crisis in Ceuta in two hours of the rally, has addressed directly the 87-year-old woman, who had ordered him in a video to resolve cases like hers. “Maricarmen, I have a message for you: the Government is working against the clock to bring the housing law decree to Tuesday,” Sánchez stated.
The general secretary of the PSOE has transferred the pressure to the investiture bloc to achieve an agreement that pleases everyone. "I ask the parliamentary groups to make one last effort to have it validated. For Maricarmen and for the millions of Spaniards who suffer the housing crisis. It is not a question of ideology, it is a question of humanity," Sánchez declared at the event attended by more than 2,000 people.
In this way, the president has made visible what the general opinion is in the PSOE. None of the parties that installed him as president in 2023 could justify their rejection of a royal decree that will include anti-eviction measures, with the cost that would entail eight months before the municipal and regional elections, while the party headquarters do not rule out that the general elections will be held earlier, in February or March.
Sánchez has avoided advancing any measure of the royal decree - the basis on which it is being negotiated is the document that the Government shared with the partners last July - although the importance he gives to presenting on Tuesday a package of measures that responds to the demands of the street is maximum.
“A nest, but of vultures”
The president will visualize his commitment this Monday with a visit to Barcelona to a promotion of affordable rental public housing. What Sánchez has done is once again point out that the PP is responsible for the housing problems – it is a regional competence – for its refusal to apply the law in the autonomies where it governs.
“We already know the housing policy of the PP and Ayuso, which has more given versions of the blow than millions of Quirón,” the President of the Government has sarcastically criticized the president of Madrid. “What if it was for a government office, what if I don't think it's bad... How are you going to think that a penthouse with 200 meters of terrace is bad?” said Sánchez, who wondered about the silence of Alberto Núñez Feijóo regarding the controversy that affects Ayuso. "Does anyone know Feijoo's opinion? Because insults all you want, but nothing from the attic." And he concluded: “The point is that Ayuso wanted to have a nest, but of vultures.”
In addition to ignoring the housing law, due to its refusal to intervene in market prices, the PP has repeatedly voted together with Vox against the housing decrees that included measures to prevent the evictions of vulnerable people, which would have prevented the eviction of Maricarmen. On Thursday, with Maricarmen's eviction becoming international news, the PP's deputy secretary of Institutional Regeneration, Cuca Gamarra, participated in an event on "insecurity and squatting" in Alcorcón (Madrid). Óscar López, Minister for Digital Transformation and Secretary General of the Madrid PSOE, has committed to intervene in the housing market if he governs and to freeze the rise in rental prices by applying the housing law. “We are going to review taxation so that a person who buys an apartment does not pay the same as a fund that buys a block to speculate,” was another of his promises.
Meanwhile, sources from La Moncloa explain that Tuesday's objective is a “balanced” royal decree with measures that satisfy the investiture partners and not “maximum” as Sumar wants. The fear of the PSOE is that it would run the risk of not being validated due to the blockade between PNV and Junts, on the one hand, and Podemos, on the other end. “We can issue the decree and get everyone to agree, but there are times when it seems that Sumar cares more about the story,” they think of the socialist wing of the Government.
In Rivas, a few kilometers from Getafe, Yolanda Díaz has demanded at the PCE festivities a housing decree that “gets its hands” on vulture funds. Furthermore, the second vice president and Minister of Labor has encouraged those camped in Sol to mobilize more, in a clear struggle with Podemos to make profitable the protests to the left of the PSOE. Díaz has insisted that Sumar is not interested in approving “any royal decree” and has urged the socialists to “take a step forward.”
Sumar has publicly shown itself willing to make tax concessions to Junts in exchange for its support. The general secretary of the neoconvergents, Jordi Turull, has asked the Government not to mix the housing decree with measures that criminalize the small owner, but he has assured that "if they want to make a regulation to stop the vulture funds, it will have the favorable vote of Junts." "The Government knows this. If they want to mix things, they are not going to have our vote. And I think that here all the parties have to make an effort," he added in Vitoria, where he was invited to the Alderdi-Eguna, on PNV day.
Junts' red line of facilitating tax incentives to encourage owners to put homes on the market, and also tax relief for tenants, no longer has Sumar's veto, but must have the approval of Podemos. Ione Belarra, its general secretary, has demanded this week that the decree include “the moratorium on evictions and the extension of rents” as a “minimum.” But above all, he has warned the PSOE not to introduce the reform of the land law in the decree, since he believes that "it only and exclusively serves to continue feeding that ball of speculation." Podemos already demanded in the summer, as a non-negotiable condition, that the Government eliminate from the draft the articles that reform the land law.
The PNV, whose vote in favor is also necessary, warned that the modification of the land law to “provide greater legal certainty, streamline planning and avoid blockages” should be included in the decree, as well as the regulation of seasonal rentals and the guarantee of respect for regional powers.
