Pedro Sánchez announced this Wednesday in Congress that the Government will finance another 43,000 homes for rent at affordable prices to facilitate access for families and young people. The president has promised to “make housing the fifth pillar of the welfare state” and to “definitively leave behind the neoliberal model based on the PP’s land law that privatized public housing and put in place a regressive fiscal model that brought unemployment, corruption and inequality”.
The president regretted that Spain is the third country in the European Union with the most empty flats. “We have one of the lowest, ridiculous and embarrassing percentages of the public housing stock, we have less than 3%, at an astral distance from Holland or Denmark, where they are at 20%. My commitment is that we advance to be like those countries, and my determination is that housing be a right and not a problem”, he said during his speech at his own request to report on the last European Council and the High Level Meeting with Morocco.
In total, for these 43,000 homes, the Government will invest 4,000 million euros. According to sources from the Executive, these are both newly built homes and property rehabilitation actions and for this a new ICO line of European Funds will be created to finance this action. The president himself has ensured that all the actions financed must meet two conditions: energy efficiency and use of the action for social rental or at an affordable price, or assignment in use for at least 50 years.
Gamarra accuses Sánchez of “lying”
The PP’s response has been led by its spokesperson, Cuca Gamarra, who has attacked the housing policy of the coalition Executive. “The lie is the second pillar of your Government”, he has maintained from the rostrum of Congress in response to the “fifth pillar of the welfare state” to which Sánchez has referred.
“One of the successes of the PSOE was the Boyer decree of 1985”, a norm promoted by the first socialist government of Felipe González and which modified the rental market in Spain. “He has replaced social democracy with radicalism, he has changed Boyer for Otegi,” Gamarra pointed out, referring to EH Bildu’s participation in the housing law.
Gamarra recalled the different housing announcements made by the Government since 2018, both with José Luis Ábalos and Raquel Sánchez at the head of the ministry. “No one has seen a floor, or an excavator, or a key,” said the also general secretary of the PP, who has pointed out to the president for “now pulling 50,000 homes out of his sleeve that have not lasted even 48 hours.”
The PP spokeswoman took the opportunity to review some of the housing measures announced by her leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, this Tuesday in an act with young people from the PP, and which go through ceding public land to build and endorse the purchase of flats.
Gamarra has elaborated on the PP strategy of considering Sareb amortized a decade after the government of Mariano Rajoy promoted it: “Now they are holding on to the toxic assets of the banks that nobody has wanted.”
Another 50,000 SAREB homes
Yesterday, the Council of Ministers already approved the mobilization of up to 50,000 Sareb homes for affordable rentals, a housing policy that pits the Executive against the opposition. “The regional presidents of the PP have already said that they are going to skip the housing law. It is unacceptable in a state of law and it is an attitude that borders on the lack of institutionality, although seeing that the boss skips the Constitution, they will think that it is a brand of the house, ”the minister spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, attacked on Tuesday at the conference press after the Council of Ministers and despite the fact that a good part of the measures displayed by the norm approved by the Government depends ultimately on the Autonomous Communities.
After hearing about the announcement, the general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has raised her chest about the “political influence” in the legislature, especially to push forward the first housing law. “Everyone has seen what has happened in this legislature. Podemos has had to use all its political influence these three years so that today we have the first housing law. The PSOE’s pre-electoral announcements will only be fulfilled if Podemos continues to govern with force”, she has said.
Source: www.eldiario.es
