The discussion is simple: Democracy’s first housing law, approved yesterday by Congress, is it “centralizing or enabling”? That is to say, does it take away from the communities and the councils – holders of exclusive competence in the matter – the autonomy to operate in the regulation of the sector or does it provide them with new mechanisms for better control of the market? The pre-election campaign, which these days marks the activity of, and the lightning movement of ERC and Bildu agreeing with the coalition Government on the final text of the rule, yesterday provided an image that had not been seen since before the October 1, 2017: PNB, PDECat and Junts offered a joint press conference to explain their vote against the rule.
“What unites us is the defense of self-government”, said Aitor Esteban, PNB spokesman, who criticized the role of ERC and Bildu. “It is not a good law”, summed up MÃriam Nogueras, from Junts, who pointed out that the rule will not be effective and its existence “deauthorizes the Government of Catalonia”. According to the spokeswoman, the Spanish Government “entered our house without forcing the door, because the door was opened by the Left”. Ferran Bel added that the PDECat summed up the dilemma: “If we have exclusive competence, why are we approving a law that sets the twenty purposes of housing policies?”.
The paradox is that the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, appealed to self-government and autonomous powers to defend the PP’s no: “When we hear the central government talking about housing without recognizing that public land is of the councils and that it is the communities that execute the housing, it is a lack of respect for the public administrations”, he assured.
Both Pilar Vallugera, of Esquerra, and Oskar Matute, of EH-Bildu, denied that there was a jurisdictional invasion, and even the deputy of the Abertzale formation assured that, very contrary to what the nationalist right maintains, improves the capacities of regional and municipal administrations to deal with the housing problem. His is the phrase: “It is not a centralizing law, it is an enabling law”.
The law had 176 votes in favor and 167 votes against, including that of the CUP. The state right in plenary, PP, Vox and Ciutadans, rejected the law as interventionist and inefficient, seed of the real estate bubble.
The PSOE, UP and Més PaÃs, on the other hand, contrasted the productive economy with the unproductive, in this case, rentism. “We are changing the paradigm, the neoliberal model that brought speculation, corruption and a lot of social pain, and laying the foundations for a new housing policy”, underlined the president, Pedro Sánchez, contradicting the neoliberal slogans on land liberalization that, remembering Aznarism, wielded PP, Vox and Ciutadans, and ignoring the attacks launched by the Catalan and Basque left and right. A new and at the same time familiar landscape that resurfaces before the agonies of 28-M.
