“Historical” day in the Congress of Deputies. The housing law is already approved in the Lower House. In a week the long faces, the tension and the sadness for what happened with the reform of the law of the only yes is yes have given way to general euphoria in the government of coalition. All parties have closed ranks with the regulations and claim it as their own at the gates of the elections in May.
the president himself Pedro Sanchez personally went to Congress this Thursday and offered statements to the media on this matter. It is not usual for the leader of the Executive to go to the Lower House in this type of vote.
Next to him, breaking the usual location of the ministers, sat the Minister of Transport, Rachel Sanchez. At his side, the second vice president, Yolanda Diaz. And at the other end of the chamber, the Ministers of Equality and Social Rights, Irene Montero and Ione Belarra. The latter also celebrated the result of the vote in statements to the media.
In the municipal and regional elections of 28M this law will play an important role. At least that’s how they want it both in the PSOE and in United We Can. It will be the autonomous communities who will have to apply some of the main measures, such as limiting rental prices in stressed areas. The PP has already rebelled against the law and has even announced that it will appeal And here then arises the big question. Can it be applied in the territories governed by the popular?
The answer they give in Moncloa, according to the sources consulted by Publicis that it will be key “citizen pressure”. That is to say, that the Socialists trust that the “contrast” that can occur between autonomous communities of places with different governments means that the leaders of the PP “have no choice” but to apply measures that favor rent reductions.
The most concrete example of this situation can be given in the Community of Madrid. Unless there is an electoral turnaround, Isabel Diaz Ayuso will continue to be regional president. She has been the most belligerent against the law, even resorting to ETA for its participation in the EH Bildu agreement.
A complex situation can occur in the Basque Country. there rules the PNV together with the socialists, who precisely have the Ministry of Housing. The Basque formation has voted against the law considering that its powers are being invaded.
They have also opened the door to file an appeal before the TC. The PNV staged its distance with the Government in a striking press conference together with Junts and PDeCat in Congress after the vote. In the socialist ranks they affirm that “we must give time”
Meanwhile, in United We Can celebrate that it has finally been carried out a norm that they have been demanding since the beginning of the legislature. They consider in the purple space that his insistence has been key to convincing the PSOE to take it forward before the elections. Podemos sees the rent cap as an “electoral shock.”
To the partners of the PSOE in the Government they would have liked that the law “approved before”. But they are satisfied because it can be “an electoral weapon for progressive candidacies” in the next elections, according to the sources consulted by this medium. They believe that the housing law is a good investment in the short and medium term, not only for this appointment with the polls.
“The citizens of Madrid are going to see how in Barcelona or Valencia people are not suffocated with rents and he is in his city. It’s going to be a long-range, cultural battle“, they point out in United We Can. In this sense, in UP they usually remember that even a PP mayor as ideologically marked as Xavier García Albiol decided to apply Catalan law in Badalona.
In Moncloa they claim that “all the social advances of this country have come from the hand of the PSOE” and they do not enter into the dispute over the authorship of the law with UP. “We are a coalition government that is working,” they insist. Of course, some socialist sources consulted acknowledge that the purple space has had a very strong relationship with the Movements for housing and anti-evictions. In fact, some of their representatives were invited to Congress this Thursday by UP.
Be that as it may, at this time the message that is transferred from both political forces with the importance of applying this law is unitary. All despite the initial resistance to lower rental prices by the PSOE, as they remember in UP. The Socialists have reacted to a scarce month of the electoral appointment. Not only with the law but with other ads already done and others that will come before the legislature begins.
