The demonstration for Maricarmen Abascal begins: "I want the unjust laws that have allowed my eviction to be changed"

Madrid / BarcelonaThe eviction of Maricarmen Abascal has triggered a wave of indignation that was visible on Wednesday in the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, and several cities across the State, and it was repeated this Saturday in a demonstration in the center of the Spanish capital. Thousands of people gathered at the Puerta del Sol, where the seat of the Community of Madrid government is located, to walk to the Madrid City Hall and end at the Congress of Deputies. It is there that the Spanish government wants to approve the new housing decree that would serve to prevent evictions like that of Maricarmen Abascal. However, at this moment, the Ministry of Housing is still negotiating the regulation with its investiture partners and also with its own coalition partner, Sumar. In fact, the party founded by Yolanda Díaz has threatened to skip the council of ministers meeting on Tuesday 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 her whole life, and to demand measures to guarantee housing for everyone. "This is not just about one Maricarmen. It is so that no one else is expelled from their home while some make a profit from a basic right," argue the organizers of the demonstration, led by the Madrid Tenants' Union. In fact, the union's spokesperson, Alicia del Río, went even further and stated that the coalition government "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 has no meaning. The wave of indignation that has been unleashed will not stop," she maintained before starting the demonstration, in which leaders of left-wing parties such as Podemos also participated.

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 unjust laws" that have allowed her eviction. "I want the unjust laws that have 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 so that it doesn't happen to other people," she added. This Friday, from the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, where she was taken on the day of the eviction, she also made a call to participate in this Saturday's demonstration: "I have not managed to defend my home, but I have fought so that others learn to fight for theirs."

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.

Race against time negotiation

As thousands of people demonstrate 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 attend 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 disagreements 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 it wants to ensure that what is approved passes the filter of the Congress of Deputies.

"This country needs a great agreement on housing matters that prevents any more Maricarmen from being evicted from her home and that protects the hundreds of thousands of people who do not make it to the end of the month 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 rentals 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 ARA, the demands from Miriam Nogueras' party involve tax incentives for both tenants and landlords –such as a 15% tax deduction on personal income tax (IRPF) and tax exemptions for those who sell their property to the administration to increase public housing stock– as well as placing limitations on vulture funds, such as preventing them from buying properties and ensuring they cannot evict vulnerable families from their properties. However, there is no consensus on the automatic renewal of leases, which Junts wants to be voluntary, and on preventing all evictions in a general way. Junts requests that in the case of "small landlords" –the fine print to define the term is being finalized– evictions can still occur and that it should be the administration that takes on the housing alternative. The Ministry of Housing guarantees that they are working on "structural" measures, different from those that Congress has rejected until now, in order to gather the necessary consensus from Podemos, EH Bildu, Sumar, and ERC to Junts and the PNV.