He has been announcing throughout the campaign that housing would be his priority if he were to form part of the next Government and this Wednesday he has made his plans in this area a little more specific: Jéssica Albiach, the Comunes Sumar candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, proposes creation of 250,000 public homes. To do this, she wants to invest 5,000 million euros. “They cannot be done all at once,” she acknowledged. “But it is not an option, it is an obligation,” she maintained.
Albiach made this proposal at the Barcelona Tribuna forum, a colloquium organized by the Barcelona Economic Society of Friends of the Country, chaired by Miquel Roca, the AED (Spanish Association of Directors) and La Vanguardia. Since then he has denounced that the Executive led by Pere Aragonès has not started the construction of any public housing and has lamented the low percentages of public housing that exist today compared to other European countries.
For Albiach, problems with access to housing are the “most important emergency” that Catalonia is experiencing. To solve it, he prescribes “brave policies.” Beyond the massive construction of public housing, his bet is the regulation of seasonal rentals and a tax against speculation consisting of a tax of 30% of the value of the property when the purchases are not for habitual residence.
“How can you have mental health without a guaranteed roof?” asked the candidate, who has already warned that the promotion of housing policies will be a sine qua non condition to be able to reach an agreement with Comunes Sumar after 12-M.
Comunes Sumar plans to promote the public sector in other types of areas, such as education or health, proposing to enhance the resources allocated to mental health and dentistry. But they also know that to overcome this challenge, resources are needed.
That is why Albiach has also put his financing model for Catalonia on the table, considering that the current one is centralist and “benefits Ayusista Madrid.” For her, in addition to putting a stop to “fiscal dumping” we must arrive at a “fraternal” method that at the same time respects the “principle of ordinality.” In other words, she wants to prevent Catalonia from being one of the territories that “contributes more and receives less.”
Now, for the leader of the commons, the new financing system must be a “country proposal and not a party proposal.” In this sense, she has urged to reach an “agreement between the Catalan forces” and then negotiate it with the state Executive in a “bilateral” way because “multilaterally it is not efficient and competition between autonomies must be avoided.”
In fact, he recalled that they have been launching this proposal since 2022 without finding support. “I am glad that Aragonès arrived, although late, to launch a financing proposal,” he said.
According to Albiach, the new financing system should also serve to improve the resources of city councils, which suffer “serious problems” and are the “first trench that citizens turn to.”
“Now is the time to deepen the self-government of Catalonia,” considered the candidate, whose political space is present in the state government through Sumar. In addition to developing the already agreed transfer of Rodalies, she is committed to increasing the weight of the Generalitat in the management of airports.
Albiach has ruled out offering tax incentives for the return of companies that left Catalonia during the process, an issue that has taken center stage during the final stretch of the campaign. “It would be unfair to those who stayed,” he reasoned.
For the current deputy, “talent retention policies” need to be made. “We need a fiscal floor because other communities are tripping us up,” Albiach insisted.
