Ada Colau, a candidate of Frente Amplio for the presidency of the Government, has launched attacks against the management of President Pedro Sánchez in the area of housing and has stated that the head of the Executive "has failed" in this regard, as she said in an interview in 'La Vanguardia' picked up by Europa Press this Sunday.
Colau has acknowledged that the Government has promoted some positive measures, but argues that the PSOE has maintained excessive alignment with the interests of the real estate sector: "Pedro Sánchez has let us down, he has failed in housing matters and we shouldn't be afraid to say it. He promised to regulate rents and it took five years to do so and he left out seasonal rentals," she said.
Along these lines, she has defended that Frente Amplio represents the guarantee for that "progress is made in housing and speculation is curbed," insisting on the need to expand the public housing stock, strengthen tenant protection, and offer support to small property owners.
She has detailed that the central proposal of her party involves applying a 10% levy on the real estate assets of those who have more than 3 rental properties above the reference price: "The measure would affect large owners and vulture funds, starting with the 13 funds that accumulate 100,000 homes in Spain."
Regarding the debate on the expropriation of flats, she has indicated that there are different mechanisms, including tanteo and retracto, which allows the administration to acquire homes "at prices lower than those on the market," a tool that, she recalled, was used in Barcelona during her time as mayor.
When asked about the possibility of occupying the Housing portfolio in the future in an eventual Government, she replied that "it is more important who controls the budget and taxation."
Taxes and great fortunes
In relation to her statements at a rally, in which she said that the rich had to be "boiled" with taxes, she clarified that "perhaps it was an excessively forceful expression," although she has reiterated that they defend a tax system in which the minority that she describes as being made up of 33 people with assets of more than a billion euros would contribute more.
According to her calculations, the tax on great fortunes could raise around 10,000 million euros, and she added that they also aim to "correct tax inequality between small businesses and large corporations."
It has also proposed changes for self-employed workers: "We propose to simplify bureaucracy in such a way that those who earn less than 85,000 euros will be able not to process VAT on a quarterly basis if it does not pay off to deduct it and to make a single annual declaration."
Outlook for the left
Regarding the current situation of the left and the results obtained in the latest electoral contests, he has framed this scenario in "a global context of progress by the right and the far right", and has emphasized that, in response to this, social mobilization continues to be key, so he expects Frente Amplio to increase its support during the campaign.
"We are carrying out self-criticism. The divisions within the left have penalized us and we must learn from it. Hence the commitment to unity in Frente Amplio. We also seek to combine experience and new leadership, as demonstrated by the tandem with Emilio Delgado," he concluded.