And if the housing decree was not what they had explained to you?
BarcelonaWe live in dangerous times for truth and coherence. Polarization has devoured the capacity to confront ideas –replacing adversaries with enemies– and electoral slogans have replaced laws. There is no legislation, only announcements are made. Problems are not solved, patches are applied. Responsibilities are not demanded from governments but from the opposition. In general, common sense went into exile years ago.
Defending that a room is not a decent dwelling or that a flat owner should not have to replace the State if the tenant does not pay is pure common sense. But for a long time now, those who stray from the single-track mind have been criminalized. The socialization of poverty has been normalized to such an extent that making ends meet and saving sounds like being a rentier and a speculator; an evil to be eradicated. In the last few hours, the political debate has been at the level of a circus: we have been vilified, insulted, and threatened. We have been wished exile and things much worse than prison. Public calls have been made so that we cannot go out on the street. And no, this has not been done by politicians or media mouthpieces of the Spanish right or far-right, but by the PSOE, Sumar, Podemos, and ERC. The Catalanophobia –with a touch of sexism– that has come to light in the last few hours is terrifying, because it comes from those who are always filling their mouths with democracy, sisterhood, respect, equality, and shared struggles. And it is exactly like that, as long as you vote for what they want.
Pedro Sánchez and his partners (Sumar, Podemos, ERC) have been governing Spain for eight years. The left has been governing Barcelona for eleven years. What have they done all this time? They have had majorities. Housing is the number one concern of the citizenry and has been making headlines for years. Have they only now discovered that it is an emergency? Do they bear no responsibility for the 200,000 evictions of the last eight years? For the dozens of suicides? One has to be very cynical to blame us for all the ills from the seats of power. Socialism has led society into an economic, social, and political pit; and the only horizon they offer our children is precariousness, insecurity, and sharing an apartment for the price of a villa.
Housing is too important and sensitive an issue to engage in cheap demagoguery, to reduce it to a phrase for TikTok, to fuel false hopes and practice a populism that harms the very people they claim to defend. There are families who are suffering, young people who cannot emancipate themselves, and people who are afraid of losing their homes. They deserve the truth, resources, and laws that work. We have the responsibility to tell the truth. Whatever the price we pay for doing so. We cannot make a family believe they are protected if the text does not guarantee them a solution. Neither can we tell a small landlord that if the tenant does not pay, the administration will compensate them if the payment is not guaranteed. A few days ago, it seemed that the PSOE had understood that repeating what it has done was counterproductive, but in the end, it has shown that it is held hostage by the far-left and electoral needs. And it is a pity, because the collateral victims are not us from Junts, it is all the citizens.
Country model
I do not defend the same model of country as Ione Belarra, Pedro Sánchez, Yolanda Díaz and Gabriel Rufián. In fact, we do not even defend the same country. This is a fact. And in a normal country we should be able to defend radically different projects without being pointed at or insulted. No matter how much they lie and shout, we assume the risk of continuing to defend that which has historically made us great as a country: a Catalan model radically opposed to the Spanish Venezuela into which some want to turn Catalonia. As long as our votes count, it will not happen. I refuse to accept that the majority of the country wants to live more precariously than what the PSC, ERC and Comuns have already caused.
We have concrete measures to address the multiple fronts affecting the country: cost of living, occupations, taxation or, of course, housing, based on measures that are already applied in other European countries. The Spanish government has had them on the table for a long time. On September 3rd, I personally handed President Sánchez a huge bundle of registered measures that he has ignored. In the last plenary session, I would have refreshed his memory, but he decided to leave the chamber when I began my speech. Whoever seeks the greater good does not abandon: they listen, negotiate, agree. And they do the exact opposite.
Once again, President Sánchez has taken a few days to reflect. He will not be reflecting on how to solve the housing problem, but rather on whether he can construct an electoral narrative that covers up the corruption surrounding him, minimizes the disastrous management of the last eight years as President of Spain, and whether this allows him to capitalize on the votes of the disoriented list contested by Rufián, Colau, and other extremists of the Spanish left. If he prioritizes housing over electoral calculation, he will call us today to negotiate on housing. If he prioritizes the PSOE, he will call for elections tomorrow.
We have defended with serenity, arguments, and our own decrees the solution, from political centrality, to the housing challenge. And centrality –so underestimated in times of polarized extremes– consists of finding a solution that protects both sides, without choosing which family we leave helpless. We are not intimidated by the blackmail of the extremes. We do not seek anyone's defeat. We want a solution to the problem. But this, in times of propaganda, matters to very few people. Or perhaps to the majority? The ballot boxes, tomorrow or later, will decide.
