Vice President of Government Yolanda Díaz and Barcelona Mayor and Comunes President Ada Colau at an event in Barcelona en Comú in 2021. Europa Press News (Europa Press via Getty Images)
The communities led by Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau branded this Wednesday a “great disappointment” that President Pedro Sánchez’s government, of which they are part, decided to appeal the article of the Constitutional Court of Catalan Anti-eviction law requiring large property owners to pay social rent to vulnerable families occupying their homes. “It’s a huge disappointment,” said Barcelona City Council’s Housing Councilor Lucía Martín, who along with Colau was a founding member of the Platform for Mortgage Affected People (PAH) in 2009. The PSC, however, accepted the decision with resignation. Sources close to the government assure that the appeal announced on Monday has already been submitted to the TC.
The regulation, promoted by the coalition government of ERC and Junts, was adopted on February 23 by 110 votes in favor (by ERC, Junts, PSC, CUP and Common), 11 against and 1 abstention. Citizens and PP did not vote because their motion for the Council of Legal Safeguards’ opinion on constitutionality was not accepted. The Government has appealed the additional provision that establishes the need to offer a social rent proposal before filing a lawsuit or claiming a mortgage debt or eviction (when the person occupying it is in a situation of exclusion located) if the houses are too big keeper. The Government considers that this article concerns the regulation of private property (Article 33 of the Spanish Constitution) and jurisdiction in matters of civil law.
“We pressured them not to present it,” said the Barcelona City Council, specifying that they “expressed it in the Council of Ministers, where Joan Subirats [fundador de los comunes y ministro de Universidaddes] Yolanda Díaz has also requested it from the Foreign Ministers…”. Martín has accused Sánchez that “if the appeal argument is judicial, he should legislate from the government.” “Blackstone wants to legalize professions, SAREB is doing it, the bodies are proposing it…” he insisted, urging Sánchez to do the same: “When it comes to skills, it’s incomprehensible that they don’t do it”.
Martín accuses the PSOE of “resistance in defending the right to housing”. The government also appealed the law that fixed rents in Catalonia for 18 months, the councilor recalled, demanding that “the PSOE hold big owners partly responsible for the housing shortage”. Unlike the Commons, Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC and former minister in Pedro Sánchez’s government, who voted for the text, welcomed Wednesday’s decision with resigned discipline. “The laws must be respected and it is important that we have the guarantee that they comply with the constitutional order and if the Spanish government considers that an article of this law does not comply, then they do what they do should.” he said.
Maria Antònia Castellana of the Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) driving group that ended in the first anti-eviction law, the famous 24/2015, has reflected that “while the resources are provided by the government when you are part of a coalition you jointly responsible [en referencia a los comunes]’ and has stated that they are having a dialogue and ‘pushing him not to appear’. “Here at the PSC we didn’t have the same answer, they don’t answer us.” “The PSOE is very clear about this, their laws will criminalize the occupation and they have not made any gesture and they are allied with the economic powerhouses, we are talking about apartments that belong to big forks that have stood empty and are occupied by vulnerable families.”
Faced with this vision, Junts regretted Wednesday that the government normally interprets laws passed by parliament in a “biased” manner. Junts showed his grievance just as he announced a bill to restore the substance of the so-called Ciuró Law – a project by former Justice Minister Lourdes Ciuró – which seeks to loosen occupations that are “seriously” transforming coexistence and turning into large-fork apartments materialize (owners of at least a dozen houses (including, for example, the SAREB or Geierfonds). The measure, which is supposed to put an end to “criminal” and “mafia-like” occupations, is intended to urge municipalities and homeowners’ associations to vacate the big fork. And if “If they don’t prove it within a month that town halls and local residents are legitimate to promote the process. The aim is for these apartments to be used for social purposes. The project they hope will be processed through a single reading would be a Modification of the Civil Code of Catalonia – so that the communities have an active legitimacy ity to exclude those who do not have the appropriate title – and change the law de Habitatge so that the municipalities can purchase the temporary use of housing for social rent for seven years.
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The government’s text puts private property back at the center of the debate, to which the government has been referring right now. “That does not stand in the way of the complaint. We in Parliament cannot stop acting either, fearing that the state might undo them and hoping that common sense will prevail,” MP Marta Madrenas said. Batet deplored this resource, claiming that parliament has its own autonomy and that the state applies its “biased version”. The deputy refuted the diagnosis of Justice Minister Gemma Ubasart, who considers her predecessor’s project to be legally secure. “We want to solve the conflicts of the neighbors and the work of the city councils of Ciuró and Cervera,” Batet said, ironically whether the government now intended to resist.
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