A huge oxygen balloon when it was needed most. The unprecedented formula of the progressive coalition Government in Spain is reaffirmed, after long months of debilitating internal struggles between the PSOE and Unides Podemos – and at the same time within this space further to the left of the political spectrum – already in the doors of a new electoral cycle that will end up determining its revalidation… Or its abrupt end, like a simple parenthesis in the history of democracy.
Pedro Sánchez, who is running for re-election as President of the Government with the recomposition of a progressive coalition after the general elections scheduled for December, if he succeeds in blocking the passage to the change in the political cycle that Alberto Núñez Feijóo is promoting at the head of the PP , ordered to face a final and definitive effort to try to fit all the pieces of the very complex puzzle of the first state housing law in Spain. An extra eagerness to overcome, in addition, the immense internal rift caused by the law of only yes is yes.
And after three years of very tough “negotiations and renegotiations” on multiple sides, first within the Government coalition between the PSOE and Unides Podemos, and then with the left-wing allies of the investiture bloc, singularly Esquerra and EH Bildu , the agreement was staged yesterday. And all parties sang victory. Right on the eve of the municipal and regional elections on May 28, the first major trial to try to neutralize the image of the end of the political cycle in Spain that the PP is promoting with the concurrence of Vox.
In Moncloa, they assume that this is the last of the great laws that will see the light of day this term, due to the legislative calendar, due to its importance and a relevance that equips the labor reform or that of pensions, as the main milestones of the coalition A colophon to a legislature that, despite facing a succession of emerging crises – the pandemic, the volcano, the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis or inflation – warns that it has already added more than 200 social protection laws and advances in civil rights , while maintaining economic growth and job creation in an environment of social peace.
“Every minute that passes these last few days I am more convinced that this legislature will also create the first housing law of democracy”, encouraged Sánchez himself on Thursday evening during the PSOE rally that he led in Cáceres.
The final agreement with ERC and Bildu smoothed the last edges. And just yesterday the Government ceded all the initial prominence to the spokesmen of these formations in the negotiation, Pilar Vallugera and Oskar Matute, to make the white smoke official in Congress.
The schedule for the definitive approval of the rule is expected to be immediate, in the coming weeks, with “a sufficient parliamentary majority”. Only the PSOE, Unides Podem, ERC and Bildu already have 172 seats. But sources in the negotiation take it for granted to La Vanguardia that, with other minority groups on the left, the new law on track will be able to gather an absolute favorable majority that will guarantee its approval.
Afterwards, Minister Pilar AlegrÃa, spokesperson for the PSOE executive, and Minister Ione Belarra, general secretary of Podemos, celebrated the news with an unusual coincidence: both declared that yesterday was “a historic day”. “This has been the most difficult negotiation to carry out in the entire legislature”, admitted Belarra. “Today the progressive majority is making progress”, he congratulated himself. And AlegrÃa also celebrated the “enormous conquest” that culminates, as he highlighted, “one of the most social legislatures in history”.
“Today we are taking a giant step”, assured the PSOE spokesman in Congress, Patxi López. And it already framed this first state housing law as the fifth pillar of the welfare state in Spain, with public health and education, the public pension system and dependency and social policies.
Among the key figures to unblock the law, in addition to Sánchez himself – “He is always directly involved in everything”, they point out – sources in the negotiation highlight the “fundamental role” of the Minister of Transport, the Catalan Raquel Sánchez, and from his Secretary of State, David Lucas. “It has been very hard, sometimes it seemed that they were the only ones who wanted it”, they admit. They also underline the work of the Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, who thanked the ERC and Bildu spokespersons for their work, and Podemos MPs such as Rafa Mayoral and Pilar Garrido. “Today we are a slightly better country”, concluded Vice President Yolanda DÃaz.
