The Esquerra Republicana group in Parliament will join Junts per Catalunya and is also committed to appealing to the Constitutional Court (TC) against the Right to Housing law that was approved by the Congress of Deputies in April. This is one of the star rules of the central government of the coalition of the PSOE and Unides Podemos that both Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda DÃaz have exhibited in the electoral campaigns of May and July, as it allows to limit increases in the price of rent.
The full Parliament will decide on September 1 whether or not to present the appeal, in a session called at the request of Junts. The PSC has already announced that it will vote against it, while the CUP and the commons have not yet defined their position, as have the PP and Vox. Citizens, on the other hand, will abstain. “We don’t like Pedro Sánchez’s Right to Housing law, nor the response of the Catalan Executive, nor the Junts proposal”, summarizes deputy Anna Grau in statements to this newspaper.
The Republicans had supported the law in Congress, but after the report of the Council of Statutory Guarantees (CGE) – the Catalan consultative body – requested by Junts, in which it is indicated that some articles encroach on powers of the Generalitat in matters of housing, they have now decided to file an appeal.
“Once we have read the opinion, we exercise our right to present the appeal and we do so from the responsibility of defending the Government and self-government”, point out sources from the republican formation, who point out that in the negotiation with the partners of the Central Executive, in the parliamentary procedure, “already managed to withdraw” aspects that constituted an invasion of competence for the Catalan Executive. “What was not possible during the negotiation and now identified by the CGE, we will defend using the tools we have”, these sources conclude.
When the law was debated in the Lower House a few months ago, in the final stretch of the last legislature, both Junts and PDECat warned that the rule encroached on the competences of the Catalan administration and voted against it, as did the PNB , which has also announced the filing of an appeal to the TC through the Basque Executive.
The Republicans, for their part, recalled that there was a Catalan rule suspended by the Constitution and made a call to choose between “intervening” in the rental market or maintaining a “position of non-intervention” with “the excuse of the competencies”. “Neither PDeCat nor Junts support stopping evictions or the withholding of incomes”, complained then the deputy Pilar Vallugera, who will repeat in the legislature that starts next week.
ERC’s will is to defend Catalan competences and at the same time maintain the “advances” contained in the standard.
