It seems that, now, finally yes. That the Housing Law transits the path of unlocking. “The agreement is close”, expose sources familiar with the negotiation. This is one of the great regulations of the legislature, an initiative of which both the PSOE and United We Can have made a political flag, but the discrepancies between the government partners have kept it stranded for three years. Until now. Everything indicates that, after several failed attempts, this time is different.
And it is because the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has directly transferred the order to unblock the norm in Congress. As he did with other negotiations that reached a dead end at some point during his term, Sánchez’s intervention is now interpreted as a sign that the text will go ahead. In the Executive there is optimism and they are confident that it will be approved “urgently.” In the environment of the President of the Government there is conviction that it will be approved and they have no doubts that it will be before the municipal and regional elections of 28-M. In the Executive they avoid giving dates for the unlocking, aware that they have failed to meet all the deadlines they have given in recent years, but in the PSOE they slip since the norm “will see the light in the next few days.”
One of the keys now resides in two of the Executive’s allies in Congress, ERC and Bildu, whose role has been fundamental in ironing out the differences between socialists and purples in recent months. United We Can has been more reticent from the outset to accept certain changes that the PSOE has tried to introduce even after the text came out of the Council of Ministers, but at the same time it cannot oppose a law that constitutes one of its political flags . In this scenario, ERC and Bildu have exerted the pressure that UP cannot do, hence the mission of the Socialists to convince the Catalans and the Basques ahead of the purples. “Without ERC and without Bildu we would not have talked about this situation of blockade because the PSOE would have passed over the resistance of Unidas Podemos,” say sources consulted by EL MUNDO.
Both sectors of the coalition now admit that the scenario is propitious and that the pact is being finalized. “There is a will”, government sources confirm. “When it is such an important issue and it is state policy, there are spaces for agreement”, they emphasize about the differences that have kept this law blocked since in October 2020 Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias agreed to regulate the rent in four months and thus save the first Coalition Budgets Since then, the rule has become one of the main sources of tension between PSOE and Unidas Podemos and the latter have not hesitated to use it as currency of change on occasions such as the approval of the Public Accounts at the end of 2021.
Iglesias himself, when he was still vice president in the Sánchez Cabinet, imposed as a condition the incorporation of Ione Belarra into the creation process when José Luis Ábalos was still Minister of Transport. Ábalos left, Raquel Sánchez arrived, Pablo Iglesias left and, three years later, the text is still not validated in Congress.
The obstacles that hold him back are basically the same ones that have marked the entire negotiation, with the ceiling on rental prices as the biggest stumbling block. The last proposal made public by the Socialists was to establish a temporary limit of 3% for the review of lease contracts in force throughout the year 2024. Currently, this limitation is 2% and is part of the special decree of measures that the Executive raised as a plan to deal with high inflation. Said limitation is in force until the end of 2023 and the new proposal would mean extending it for another twelve months and raising it to 3%, pending the readiness of the new reference price index contemplated in the future Housing Law.
United We Can wanted to set it at 3% structurally, but Nadia Calviño resisted, so, while waiting to know the fine print of the final agreement, the big question is how this aspect will be definitively raised.
The other big stumbling block in the negotiations has to do with the possibility of establishing a maximum limit for new contracts and the way to do it to contain the rise in prices. The text approved by the Council of Ministers already contemplates a mechanism applicable to rentals with large owners in the so-called ‘stressed rental areas’, but the members of the Socialist Party wanted this mechanism to go further and also cover small holders.
The unlocking is in sight almost at discount time for the regional and municipal elections on May 28 and that appointment is precisely what has accelerated the negotiations. The approval of the Housing Law supposes, on the one hand, a lever for the Government in the face of the electoral campaign, selling the first rule of democracy on housing, electoral ammunition in short. On the other hand, it means uniting the coalition, which is going through difficult times with the serious crisis over the reform of the law of only yes is yes as a backdrop. In fact, the approval in Congress of the Housing Law would cover the “noise” that will be generated again next week with the vote on the reform of the only yes is yes, which will once again show the division and clashes in the coalition.
From ERC and EH Bildu, however, they want to curb optimism and pressure from the Government, and the agreement is not considered closed. Both formations indicate that the negotiation continues, although it is already being carried out at the highest level, which usually indicates that it is in the final phase, that of the last details or fringes. Sources involved in the negotiation also point out that now would be the time to “leave space” for ERC and Bildu, articulating that they too can display this standard as an achievement, since they are two actors who have been fully involved in it, and keys for it to be approved.
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