The PNV does not welcome the agreement reached between the central government, ERC and EH Bildu to unblock the housing law. The jeltzale spokesman in Congress, Aitor Esteban, has assured that he supposes “legal gibberish” whose usefulness he has doubted and has also warned that it could suppose an “invasion of jurisdiction”. Esteban has also criticized the position of EH Bildu with respect to this rule.
Aitor Esteban has expressed himself in these terms in an interview with Radio Euskadi, in which he has indicated that the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, “plays variable geometry”, as he has been doing during “the entire legislature”.
In this way, he has recognized that Sánchez maintains a “fluid relationship” with the PNV, but if “they do not agree” on any issue and the president can carry out his proposal with another formation, “he does.” Thus, he has referred to the agreement reached with ERC and EH Bildu to unblock the housing law and has criticized the fact that, to date, he does not have the agreed text in his possession and the presentation is held this Tuesday.
“We do not have the text. At the time they spoke with us but we told them that it was an invasive law. Given the electoral perspective, they were clear that it had to be resolved quickly and what has come out has come out… If we are strategic partners, we should have the text”, he lamented.
In Esteban’s opinion, the Executive’s agreement with ERC and EH Bildu represents “a photo of electoral urgency” in which “ERC provides the necessary votes by having thirteen seats and is the one who ends up moving EH Bildu”.
Esteban, who has warned that, “from what is known up to now”, the law would have to be applied in the Basque Country, has stressed that to date the State has not had any jurisdiction over housing. Thus, he recalled that in the Autonomous Community of Euskadi there is already a housing law that the PNV will defend “against all odds against invasions of jurisdiction.”
“This law sets the conditions for how the public park has to be, for public policies on housing, it forces you to follow some indicators, it creates a sectoral conference, a bilateral policy monitoring commission… For a group pro-sovereignty and pro-independence party must find it at least contradictory to give an open road to this”, he expressed in reference to EH Bildu.
In this way, he has recognized that they have “many doubts” that the law “will work” because it is “a little legal gibberish.” Esteban has questioned why “the tourist flats that are stressing many areas do not enter to regulate.”
“To contain the rise in rents, a law is not needed… and it will be almost impossible for the owner to deal with illegal occupations. Let’s see if this drives the desire to rent out the flats or the opposite” , has been questioned.
Finally, Aitor Esteban has recognized that the law could end up in the Constitutional Court due to the possible invasion of powers and the Basque Government “will have to decide” what to do.
“It is a bipartite government. The representatives of the PSE are also obliged by their leadership in Madrid in this sense and I do not know what can happen. I suppose that some parties will take it to the TC, I do not know if for the same reasons. To me what What worries me is the invasion of powers and that the law is a fiasco rather than an advance,” he concluded.
Regarding the announcement by President Pedro Sánchez that the Executive will approve this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers the mobilization of 50,000 Sareb homes, Esteban has considered that in the Basque Country it will not have “a great effect”. “The good part of that housing stock, the State has already tried to execute. Now there may be something decent, but we will have to see what type of housing they are, the places where they are and habitable conditions. In principle, it does not seem bad to me the measure”, he added.
