The pressure on the Government for the future housing decree will move this Monday from Madrid to Barcelona. The Tenants' Union of Catalonia has announced a concentration coinciding with the visit of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to the Catalan capital, with the aim of directly demanding that the regulation planned for the Council of Ministers on Tuesday incorporates one of its main demands: the automatic renewal of rental contracts so that they can be maintained indefinitely.
The call comes after a weekend of increasing mobilization due to the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman expelled this week from the Madrid home where she had lived since 1956. After the demonstration on Saturday in Madrid, hundreds of people have maintained a camp at Puerta del Sol with their sights set on the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, September 29. In Barcelona, however, the union has decided for now not to set up a camp and concentrate its efforts on the protest during Sánchez's visit.
"If it does not include indefinite contracts, it will be a farce"
The spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, Enric Aragonès, has raised the tone regarding the negotiations held by the PSOE, Sumar, and the parliamentary groups. "The next 48 hours are crucial," he noted, before warning that the organization will not accept "cosmetic measures." For the union, the decisive point will be that the decree allows contracts to be automatically renewed and does not end up leaving the tenant exposed to having to leave the home or accept new conditions once the established period ends.
"We call on Catalans to tell Pedro Sánchez to his face that we will not accept a farce," Aragonès stated. The organization maintains that a regulation that does not include indefinite contracts would fall far short of the reforms demanded by the housing movement, although that proposal is a demand of the union and is not yet part of a definitive text approved by the Government.
Sánchez assures that he is working "against the clock"
The call occurs on the same day that Sánchez has publicly responded to Maricarmen and has assured that the Executive is working "against the clock" to bring a royal decree law on housing to the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. The president has also asked the parliamentary groups for "one last effort" to ensure that the regulation can later be validated by Congress.
The announcement represents a step regarding the last few days, but does not clarify a fundamental issue: what measures will ultimately be part of the decree. Negotiations have been open for months and the differences among the groups of the investiture majority have so far prevented closing a definitive text. Sánchez linked this Sunday the urgency of reaching an agreement to the case of Maricarmen and to the millions of citizens affected by housing access problems, but has not confirmed that the Executive will fully assume the five demands presented by the tenants' unions.
The five points of the "Maricarmen decree"
The so-called "Maricarmen decree" is not yet the official name of a Government regulation, but rather the proposal that the Confederation of Tenants' Unions presented on Friday to try to ensure that the case of the octogenarian leads to a broader reform. The text prepared by the organizations contains five major blocks: structural measures to prevent evictions, reform of the Urban Leasing Law to regulate seasonal rentals and rooms, price freezing, effective extensions, and automatic renewal of contracts.
It is this last point that the Catalan union now places as a fundamental condition. Its proposal seeks that the ordinary termination of the contractual term does not allow the owner to automatically recover the property and that the rental relationship can continue through successive renewals. The specific regulation, its exceptions, and its compatibility with property rights would depend on the legal design that is ultimately adopted, so simply talking about "indefinite contracts" summarizes a demand whose legal development would have to be specified in the regulation.
Barcelona does not replicate, for now, the Sol encampment
The leadership of the Catalan union met this Sunday to decide how to respond to the mobilization that arose in Madrid. Finally, it has ruled out, at least for now, reproducing a camp like the one set up at the Puerta del Sol and has opted to take advantage of Sánchez's presence in Barcelona to convey the protest to him. The decision shows a differentiated strategy: to maintain pressure simultaneously in different cities without all mobilizations necessarily adopting the same format.
The union also called this Sunday to concentrate in front of the building on Entença street where Rosario, the last conventional tenant of a property acquired by a fund where the rest of the homes have been transformed into "coliving" formulas, lives. The organization uses this case to argue that the problem is not limited to Maricarmen's eviction and that it also affects tenants facing contract terminations or transformations of the residential use of their buildings.
The protest extends after the Maricarmen case
The mobilization in Barcelona is part of a coordinated offensive by tenant unions. The Confederation had already announced on Friday that it would demand the immediate approval of its proposal from the Executive and has also asked CC OO and UGT to call a general strike related to housing and the cost of living if their demands do not succeed. This is a request from tenant organizations; the major trade union centers have not announced a call of that nature so far.
This weekend, Madrid has concentrated a good part of that pressure. After the march on Saturday, hundreds of people set up tents in Sol and have announced their intention to stay there at least until Tuesday, waiting to see what the Council of Ministers ultimately approves. The organizers have also placed indefinite contracts among their main conditions.
The next 48 hours, decisive
The calendar now concentrates decisions in just two days. On Monday, Sánchez will encounter a protest over housing during his visit to Barcelona; on Tuesday, the Council of Ministers intends to approve the royal decree lawthat has been negotiated for months. Then another obstacle will arise: since it is a decree law, the Government will need Congress to validate it for it to remain in force. Sánchez has acknowledged this need by publicly asking his parliamentary partners to make one last effort to reach an agreement.
The tenant movement intends to use those hours to increase pressure. Their message is that the political impact of the Maricarmen case should not end with an individual solution or temporary measures, but should lead to a reform of the rental rules. Barcelona will be this Monday the next stage of that dispute: while the Government tries to finalize a decree that it can approve and then validate, the Tenants' Union warns that it will consider any text that leaves out the indefinite renewal of contracts insufficient.