The race between ERC and the Comuns for the housing banner (and to make the socialists move)

BarcelonaHousing is, at the moment, the area in which PSC, Esquerra and the Comuns have made the most progress since Salvador Illa's party came to the Government of the Generalitat. The three-way understanding already began in the summer: the Government's promise of cBuild 50,000 protected flats in five years, one of the flagship measures of the legislature, is included in both the investiture agreement with ERC and with the Commons. Until now it has been Jéssica Albiach who has carried the weight in this matter, despite the fact that sources from both sides recognise that the content of the negotiations has been shared with ERC to ensure their vote. Now, however, the Republicans are appearing and also want to vindicate themselves with the regulation of seasonal rentals. A negotiation that opens a race between ERC and the Commons to see who makes the socialists move more in housing.

The first major pact between the Government and the Commons with housing came at the beginning of the year, with the sanctioning regime that fines the owners who skip the rental price caps and those who commit fraud with the seasonal modality. Their vote in the Parliament drew a clear line between the left and the right in the hemicycle: the PSC, the Comuns, ERC and the CUP voted in favor, while Junts, PP, Vox and Aliança Catalana voted against. After this first agreement, new understandings have arrived announced with those of Jéssica Albiach: the package of fiscal measures that raises taxes on large holders, the increase in the tourist tax to allocate part of the revenue to housing policies and the agreement to build 1,200 protected flats on fourteen plots of land owned by the Generalitat. For the Comuns, the next stop is the negotiation with the Department of Territory so that 36,000 protected homes in tense areas do not go to the free market. For the Republicans, the regulation of seasonal rentals.

The battle to approve Catalan regulations on seasonal rentals dates back to the previous legislature. PSC and Junts The ERC government rejected in Parliament the decree law that the ERC government approved the day before the electoral campaign began to put an end to the legal loophole that allows owners to use this modality to avoid price caps. This Monday, the general secretary of ERC, Elisenda Alamany, announced that they were very "close" to an agreement. The socialist executive downplays it: Territori assures that they are still working on it and that, in addition, the agreement must include those of Jéssica Albiach.

But, why don't the Comuns come out publicly to pressure the Government on this issue? Because, as sources from the formation explain in the ARA, they believe that the issue must be resolved at a state level, with the reform of the Urban Leasing Law (LAU) that Junts, the PP and Vox vetoed in Congress. "And we do not want to reduce the pressure on Junts to get ahead," explains a voice from the party.

Without three-way negotiations

In recent months the Government has used the housing measures as a lubricant for the parliamentary alliance with its investiture partners. At a time, moreover, when the president, Salvador Illa, has been left without his first budget of the legislature due to the refusal of Esquerra to support it.

But, if these measures are destined to be approved with the votes of the PSC, ERC and the Commons, why don't the three sit down together to negotiate them? The Commons attribute the refusal of the Republicans to carry out joint negotiations with the PSC to the "indetermination" in which they still move regarding their relationship with the Socialists. They chain one cold and one hot: if the meeting between Isla and Oriol Junqueras gave way to announcements to accelerate the transfer of Cercanías and materialize (for 17,104 million) the forgiveness of the FLA, this week ERC has once again shown its teeth to the Government and has requested an opinion from the Council of Statutory Guarantees on a decree law on housing and urban planning that, among other measures, created a register of large holders. The problem, according to ERC, is not with the content – the Government of Aragonès already wanted to implement this measure – but with the form: the executive has approved it through a decree law, designed for urgent cases, and without negotiating it.

ERC sources deny that the reason is to avoid a three-way photo that gives an image of a "tripartite that does not exist". Their strategy, they argue, is to follow their own path negotiating to extract from the socialists the commitments that, in their opinion, will materialize in good measures to resolve the housing crisis in Catalonia, whatever the commons do. They also claim that it was precisely the now MP and former ERC councillor for Territori Ester Capella who first took action to regulate this type of rental.