Both the Government and Junts have shown their willingness to negotiate an immediate solution so that a forthcoming decree, which will again propose the freezing of rents, can succeed, after the one approved by the Executive a month ago was defeated last Tuesday in the plenary session of Congress and its repeal was published in the BOE this Thursday. The Government declares itself optimistic about “taking advantage of this window of opportunity” and Junts does not rule out this option, provided some legal issues in the text are corrected and their proposals to apply tax cuts to lower incomes and the self-employed are taken into account. The PSOE, Sumar, and Junts seem to want to set aside their growing differences on other matters in the face of the housing emergency and the start of another electoral campaign.
The parliamentary spokesperson for Junts, Míriam Nogueras, appeared on several media outlets the same day as the plenary session, after voting against the ratification of the decree that established the prohibition of raising rents above 2%, to open the door to contacts to negotiate and approve as soon as possible a new decree on the same issue to avoid housing dramas and legal uncertainties. Nogueras set a series of conditions, but above all acknowledged that Junts is not against limiting rent increases in the current economic context of uncertainties and price inflation due to the war in Iran, which is the underlying problem that led Sumar to pressure the PSOE within the Government to approve the decree defeated this Wednesday a month ago.
The Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, from Sumar, made a passionate plea in the plenary session in the form of a dichotomy for other political leaders between the general interest or that of speculators and vulture funds that already control 60% of the housing market in the country: “What is at stake for almost three million compatriots is being able to continue living in their homes or being expelled from their neighborhoods.”
Sumar took the lead in that first stage of the race against time negotiation with the groups to achieve the ratification of that decree, to the point of sending letters and calling directly the spokespersons of practically all parties represented in Congress, but failed to convince either the PP or the Catalan nationalists, despite accepting to concede some red lines of tax benefits for owners and the self-employed. Junts warned from the outset that it did not like either the wording of the regulation due to several technical defects or the decree method. The party led by Carles Puigdemont registered its own proposal on April 15, in the form of a non-legislative motion of urgent measures related to housing, and they now refer to that regulation to speak.
Junts’ proposal, signed by its spokesperson and real estate expert, Marta Madrenas, first proposes, against the vulture funds, “the modification of the Civil Code to allow mortgage debtors to cancel their debt for the same price at which the bank sold it to a third party; to guarantee that the home of an elderly person continues to be considered their habitual residence once they enter a nursing home, preventing the Tax Agency from penalizing them fiscally if they decide to sell it,” and finally, to encourage savings with “tax incentives for bank accounts intended for housing rehabilitation.”
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Among the tax deductions for the purchase and renovation of housing, Junts requires rent reductions for tenants with incomes below 33,007.20 euros and the approval of a reduced VAT for the self-employed with an exemption for those who bill less than 85,000 euros annually.
From the Government, after digesting the blow of the decree’s defeat in the plenary with some resentment among partners due to their different levels of involvement in defending its timeliness now, a dual strategy has been launched to save the new project in the immediate future.
The second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, and the other members of the Sumar Cabinet have opted for maximum pressure in the political sphere, but also for betting on street mobilizations to facilitate Junts’ change of position, after pointing to the “irresponsibility” and lack of state sense of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s PP. Díaz made that call again this Friday from Málaga, after participating with the main unions, CC OO and UGT, in the May 1 demonstration which carries among its slogans the right to housing. Ernests Urtasun, the spokesperson and Minister of Culture, warned that they will not stop in that demand until the extension of the rent freeze is maintained.
In the socialist area of the Executive, they want to see progress and lean towards reopening negotiations, but discreetly with Junts. The Secretary of State for Relations with the Cortes, Rafael Simancas, was the one who maintained almost daily contacts with the parties during these past weeks without success. The dialogue is now also carried out from the Ministry of Housing, whose head, Isabel Rodríguez, announced this Thursday that she will hold a round of contacts with several parties to “take advantage of this window of opportunity” opened by Junts and has expressed her willingness to sit down to talk, dialogue, and negotiate to see where there may be agreements. The Government has now recalled, regarding these demands in the fiscal area, that as early as January, President Pedro Sánchez himself offered some 100% IRPF reductions to owners who put their homes on the rental market.
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