The CEOE pressures for the 'no' to the housing decree: "They act like Robin Hood and are the Sheriff of Nottingham"

MadridThe Spanish employers' association CEOE has not liked the Spanish government's housing decrees that will be voted on in Congress this Friday. Its president, Antonio Garamendi, has denounced that "the responsibility of the State [to find a solution] to the housing problem is left on the shoulders of private savings [the owners]". "The administration must solve it and not lead to an invasion of private property", he reiterated during his speech at the CEOE's general assembly this Thursday, in which he was re-elected president. Later he said clearly that he would vote no to both decrees. The message was launched at a time when neither Junts nor the PNB have specified the sense of their vote. "[The decrees] Have more of an electoral than a political character", he insisted.

Garamendi even compared the proposals that go in the direction of the decrees and their promoters with the villains of the film: "Some think they are playing Robin Hood and are not aware that they represent the Sheriff of Nottingham", he said. One of the decrees provides, among other things, a temporary suspension of some evictions, but also compensation for owners for this reason.

It is not the first time that Garamendi has spoken out about the Spanish government's housing policies. The last time was last March, when the extraordinary extension of rental contracts was proposed. For the employers' association, it is a "disgrace" that decrees written hours before their approval are presented against the clock to "solve a problem as complex and real" as that of housing.

The second longest-serving president

Antonio Garamendi has been proclaimed president of the Spanish employers' association CEOE for four more years (until 2030), thus chaining his third term. He did not need elections because he had no rival. With this re-election, he becomes the second longest-serving president of the Spanish employers' association, behind the historic José María Cuevas Salvador (1984-2007), and will surpass the Catalan Joan Rosell i Lastortras (2010-2018), who introduced the two-term limit to the presidency of the CEOE that Garamendi himself abolished three years ago.

Garamendi begins a new term marked by tensions within the social dialogue, a more elevated tone with the Spanish government, and the lack of tripartite agreements, for which he holds the government and the Ministry of Labor primarily responsible: "It is more apparent than real," he said regarding the social dialogue. He has also cooled the possibility of addressing salary increases without taking into account labor costs, which he claims have increased by 30.7% since 2018. In any case, he has acknowledged that they are negotiating the new Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), but has requested that, in addition to wages, other issues be addressed. So-called labor absenteeism, for example, has become the employers' great crusade.