Thousands of people demonstrate in Madrid to put an end to evictions

Madrid / BarcelonaThe eviction of Maricarmen Abascal has triggered a wave of indignation that was visible on Wednesday in the streets of Madrid, Barcelona and various cities throughout the State, and has been repeated this Saturday in a demonstration in the center of the Spanish capital. Under the sloganNot one more Maricarmen, thousands of people gathered in the Plaza del Sol, where the seat of the government of the Community of Madrid is located, to walk to the Madrid City Council and end at the Congress of Deputies. In total, 25,000 people took to the streets, according to the Spanish government delegation —300,000 according to the organizers—.

It is in the lower house where the Spanish government wants to approve the new housing decree that serves to avoid evictions like that of Maricarmen Abascal. However, at this moment the Ministry of Housing is still negotiating the regulation with the investiture partners and also with its own coalition partner, Sumar. In fact, the party founded by Yolanda Díaz has threatened to skip Tuesday's cabinet meeting if this decree is not approved.

The pressure from the minority coalition partner, Sumar, coincides with the mobilizations that are being organized by civil society to protest against the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whom a vulture fund forced out of the apartment where she had lived all her life, and to demand measures to guarantee housing for everyone. The spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants' Union, Alicia del Río, has pointed directly to the coalition government and has warned that it "makes no sense" if it does not approve the housing decree on Tuesday. "If it is not approved this Tuesday, this government that calls itself progressive makes no sense. The wave of indignation that has been unleashed will not stop," she maintained before starting the demonstration, where she also accused the Spanish government of using the Maricarmen Abascal case in a "partisan" way. Del Río also held the executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso responsible for not having prevented this eviction.

This very Saturday, Maricarmen Abascal herself has demanded that the President of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, approve this decree on Tuesday to change the legislation that forced her out of her home. "I want the unjust laws that allowed my eviction to be changed," she requested through a video released by the Madrid Tenants' Union. Maricarmen Abascal has asked for this "first step" to end "this nonsense." "I want what happened to me to serve as a way to ensure it doesn't happen to other people," she added, still from the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, where she was taken on the day of the eviction.

This Friday it transpired that the vulture fund Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL submitted a proposal to the Madrid City Council so that the woman could return to her apartment. However, the council rejected it because it "does not meet the legal requirements" and has called a meeting for Monday with the representatives of Maricarmen Abascal and the fund that owns the apartment to mediate. When the protesters passed in front of the Madrid City Council, they jeered the mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida.

Race against time negotiation

While thousands of people were demonstrating through the streets of Madrid, the Spanish government continues to negotiate with its partners. And now it does so with the threat from Sumar not to show up at Tuesday's council of ministers if the housing decree is not approved. It would not be the first time, in any case, that Sumar stands up a council of ministers: it already did so in the month of March, delaying its start by more than two hours, due to discrepancies with the PSOE over the content of the anti-crisis decree following the war in Iran. The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, is working against the clock to manage to get them all into the equation, although she wants to ensure that what is approved passes the filter of the Congress of Deputies.

"This country needs a great agreement on housing that prevents any more Maricarmens from being evicted from their homes and that protects the hundreds of thousands of people who cannot make ends meet because of housing," Sumar asserted in a statement. In their view, the solutions involve "the protection of families against evictions and vulture funds, the regulation of speculative uses of housing such as tourist apartments and fraud in seasonal or room rentals, the recovery of Maricarmen's housing, and the automatic renewal of rental contracts." However, these demands must be married with those that Junts has put on the table to ensure that if a new housing decree-law is approved on Tuesday, the measures are validated in the Congress of Deputies.

As reported this Friday by the ARA, the demands of Miriam Nogueras's party involve tax incentives for both tenants and owners – such as a 15% tax deduction on personal income tax (IRPF) and tax exemptions for those who sell their housing to the administration to increase the public stock – and also placing limitations on vulture funds, such as preventing them from buying properties and preventing them from evicting vulnerable families from their properties.

However, there is no consensus on the automatic extension of rentals, which Junts wants to be voluntary, and on generally preventing all evictions. Junts requests that in the case of "small landlords" – the fine print to define the term is being finalized – evictions may occur and that it should be the administration that assumes the housing alternative.

The Ministry of Housing guarantees that they are working on "structural" measures, different from those that have been rejected by Congress so far, in order to gather the necessary consensus from Podemos, EH Bildu, Sumar, and ERC to Junts and the PNV. The purple party, which was at the demonstration in Madrid this Saturday, is suspicious that the Spanish government might reach an agreement on the decree with Junts.