Congress has approved the Housing Law with 176 votes in favor compared to 167 against and one abstention. The norm that the Government qualifies as “historic” establishes a ceiling on the increase in rental prices, defines the figure of the large homeowner in one who owns five properties and establishes conditions to be able to carry out evictions and evictions.
The text has remained bogged down in the Upper House for more than two years, but in the run-up to the municipal and regional elections of 28-M, the Government decided to step on the accelerator convinced of being able to hoist the norm as an electoral banner. Proof of the importance that the Executive gives to the law just before the appointment with the polls has been the fact that two ministers, that of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, and that of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, have gone up to the rostrum to congratulate themselves on a pact that, according to the first, puts an end to the “pitch” culture and, according to the second, is a boost to “hope” and the “fifth pillar of the welfare state.”
The coalition Executive has taken little time to celebrate the triumph on the verge of the elections after years of difficult parliamentary processing. “It is one of the milestones of this democracy”, considered the Prime Minister himself, Pedro Sánchez, at the gates of Congress, referring to the fact that this is the first law focused exclusively on housing in the last 40 years.
The law that Congress approves today with the votes of PSOE, Unidas Podemos, ERC, EH Bildu and Más País, has been accompanied by successive announcements by the President of the Government promising the creation of tens of thousands of public housing to serve, to affordable prices, the needs of young people and vulnerable families. Announcements that a good part of the parliamentary groups have considered “propaganda”.
The norm maintains for this year the limit of rent increases at 2%. This percentage will increase to 3% in 2024 and before the end of next year a reference index will have to be set, other than the CPI. With this measure of intervention in the market, the Government together with ERC and Bildu, the two formations with which it has agreed on the details of the text, hopes to be able to place rental prices in the so-called stressed areas at acceptable levels.
In addition, it contemplates a series of measures to avoid evictions of people in vulnerable situations. This point is one of the most criticized among the opposition formations that argue that with them it is difficult for their owners to recover squatted homes or with tenants who stop paying.
Opposition groups have described the rule as “bargain” for squatting and a frontal attack on the right to private property, in addition to warning that it will further restrict the rental market due to the multiple conditions imposed on the lease.
The popular ones have shown that the law “does not convince anyone” and have assured that it is an initiative that only intends to “solve the problem of the Government” in view of its poor forecasts before the polls. “This is an armed robbery,” said the deputy Ana Zurita. The popular ones remain firm in that the autonomies in which they govern will maintain their housing policy and will not accept that their powers are limited by rules in which they do not believe. “Those who agree precisely with those who violate it cannot talk about complying with the law,” said PP spokeswoman Cuca Gamarra, alluding to the government’s pact with ERC and Bildu.
The PDeCAT, JxCAT and the PNV oppose the “invasion of powers” and consider that the central government is going too far and interfering in policies that are exclusive to the Autonomous Communities and, furthermore, they maintain that this initiative will not solve the problem in any case. of the house. The Basque nationalists have already slipped even the possibility that their Government presents an appeal of unconstitutionality. This is ruled out in the case of the Generalitat of Catalonia, headed by ERC, one of the key parties in the negotiation of the law with the Government.
Dire consequences are those predicted by Vox, who regrets that “once again the PSOE disregards” the opinion of experts and “only listens to Bildu while ERC eats the toad of the jurisdictional invasion.” Ciudadanos has also opposed it, arguing that the law is “populist” and “improvised.” “Price intervention does not work”, Inés Arrimadas has sentenced, who has regretted that it returns to a method that she, she has said, “Franco already invented”, alluding to the so-called old rent rentals.
Bildu, protagonist of the agreement with the Government, has rejected the argument of the invasion of powers and has vindicated the “social character” that is given to housing by law. ERC, for its part, has recalled the “difficult” negotiation that has given rise to the regulation and has defended the “intervention” of the rental market, while its deputy, Pilar Vallugera, has considered that all those who oppose it they do because “they are right-wing”.
Unidas Podemos has also defended the initiative, reeling off a discourse of the vulnerable versus the powerful rich. For the purple, with this law, however, “nothing ends” but rather “begins to build a new social paradigm” that “defends citizens against speculators and vulture funds.”
The same has been done by the PSOE, a group that has compared the approval of the Housing Law with the implementation of health or universal public education. In short, the Socialists echo the president’s slogan according to which with this rule “the welfare state has just been built” with a “fifth pillar” that makes housing “a right and not a market good.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
