The future housing law is undergoing its first major parliamentary scrutiny

Project from Law on the right to housing This Thursday passed its first major parliamentary review, gaining the support of the Commission for Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda of the Congress of Deputies, with 19 votes in favor (PSOE, Unidas Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu), 17 against (PP, Vox, Cs, PDECat and Canary Coalition) and one abstainer, from PNV. The commission’s opinion will now be presented at the plenary session of the House, where it will be voted on next week.

The final text includes some changes agreed at the last minute between groups supporting the Government and PDECat, among them the deletion of an article that was introduced a few days ago in the bill and which was supposed to force all real estate agents to take out civil liability insurance in order to do business.

In addition to these tweaks, the debate centered on ideological and jurisdictional issues. Thus, all the right-wing groups, PP, Vox and Cs, bet that this law will one day be declared partially unconstitutional because it will reduce the supply of real estate for rent, and thus increase prices. For their part, the nationalists of the PNV, PDECat and the Coalition of the Canary Islands agreed that this represented an invasion of the state on the housing powers that only the autonomous communities have.

The PP announces that it will abolish it if it is in power

PP spokeswoman María Zurita described the law as “media” and “populist” and He promised “complaint and cancellation” if his party enters the government. After claiming that “the only benefit of this law is that Pedro Sánchez stays in Moncloa until the end of the year”, he predicted that it “will have unintended effects, such as the law is only yes, because owners will withdraw from the market and increase prices and, even worse, tax fraud.

PNV deputy Íñigo Barandiarán justified his “very fair restraint” by saying that the law “covers the basic issues”. However, he said that this “unnecessary law” “carpet on state interference» and defended that each community “can decide on its own housing policy, even if the authorities on duty don’t like it”.

He also criticized the “inconsistency” of political parties that, at the same time as they declare themselves “sovereign”, accept the “recentralization” of authority that, in his opinion, the text implies, and he condemned that “the problem is tourist apartments”.

Umbrella for regional regulations

On behalf of the groups that support the norm, ERC Deputy Pilar Vallugera replied that it is not her law, but it is an instrument that will allow the Catalan government to apply hers, after the Constitutional Court annulled the articles that intervened in the market to curb rents.

Vallugera explained that during the negotiations with the PSOE he had “terrible discussions” on subsidized housing and that he had not achieved what he wanted on the issue of evictions, but insisted that the text they agreed on was “better than nothing”. and that with him “there can be withholding of rent for six months”.

On the same track, Oskar Matute (EH Bildu) stated that the law is “a legal umbrella for public authorities that want to do something about the housing problem to do it.”

For his part, Ferran Bel (PDeCAT) assured that “it pains him that those who must defend the positioning of powers do not do so and that” the older brother must confirm what the Parliament of Catalonia approves.

Final approval in May

From Unidas Podemos, Pilar Garrido pointed out that this law is in line with the Constitution and implies a “paradigm change”, recognizing housing as a right for the first time, while Socialist Vicent Sarrià stressed that the text “maintains a balance between the social functions of housing and the right to property” .

On behalf of Vox, Cristina Esteban criticized that “coups and philoetarras mark the politics of this country” and, on behalf of Cs, Juan Ignacio López-Bas said that the text “legalizes the occupation”, like Ana Oramas (CC ) for whom “while the rich in families and vulnerable to have a home, the middle classes are led to a dead end.”

The opinion approved this Thursday included more than 40 amendments agreed by PSOE, UP, ERC and EH Bilda in the presentation report and more than 300 live amendments that other groups are holding for the next plenary debate.

The housing bill, which the coalition government officially began negotiating in January 2021, is scheduled to go to a plenary session of Congress on April 27, after which it will go to the Senate and return to the House of Commons for approval. final approval in mid-May.