The protesters for the right to housing want to maintain the encampment at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid until Tuesday

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 across the State, and has been repeated this Saturday in a demonstration in the center of the Spanish capital that ended in an encampment. Under the slogan Not one more Maricarmen, thousands of people gathered at the Puerta del Sol, where the seat of the government of the Community of Madrid is located, to walk to the Madrid City Hall 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. The Madrid Tenants' Union ended the demonstration by calling for an encampment at the Puerta del Sol and tents have spread across this square in the center of Madrid throughout the night.

The goal of the organizers is to pressure the Council of Ministers to approve a housing decree-law on Tuesday, which must subsequently be ratified by the Congress of Deputies, and for this reason they will maintain the encampment until then. In statements to El Suplement on Catalunya Ràdio, Aldo Reverte, from the Tenants' Union, said that their intention is to maintain the "pressure" with the idea that what they have called the "Maricarmen decree" will be approved.

On this first night there were about thirty tents. A supply station with provisions has also been set up, with an image that is reminiscent of the 15-M movement from fifteen years ago, and activities have already begun to be scheduled: this Sunday there are yoga workshops, banners, non-violent action, assemblies, among others.

Political negotiation

For now, the PSOE does not guarantee bringing the housing decree-law this Tuesday, as its priority is to reach an agreement with all the partners of the plurinational majority, including Junts and the PNV, so that it can subsequently be validated in the lower house. Sumar, however, is exerting pressure to increase the pace of the negotiations and has threatened to skip Tuesday's meeting if this decree-law is not approved now.

It would not be the first time, in any case, that Sumar skips 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.

"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 this Saturday 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-by-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 of Miriam Nogueras's party involve tax incentives for both tenants and owners – such as the 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 ensuring they cannot evict vulnerable families from their properties.

However, there is no consensus on the automatic extension of rentals, 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 – eviction should be allowed and it should be the administration that assumes the housing alternative.

Mobilization on the street

The pressure from the coalition's minority 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 at the coalition government and 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 the demonstration began, where she also accused the Spanish government of using Maricarmen Abascal's case in a "partisan" way. Del Río also held Isabel Díaz Ayuso's executive 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 so that it does not 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 S. L. presented 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 on 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 booed the mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida.