The PSOE has woken up on Monday, following the massive housing protest on Sunday, with a clear idea in mind: to avoid having that discontent turned against them. Various voices within the Socialist party, from Pedro Sánchez downwards, have expressed solidarity with the protesters – despite criticism of the government and even calls for the resignation of the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez – have defended the measures taken, announced new ones, and attacked the PP. All with the aim of “avoiding a direct assignment of blame to the Government,” according to a source from Ferraz. However, the PSOE has encountered a problem: Sumar, their coalition partner in the government, is following a different, partly opposing script, summarized as: the PSOE has not understood the outcry from the streets, as evidenced by their own reaction to the protest.
The group holding the second vice presidency through Yolanda Díaz has gone to the extreme of presenting from their ministries “a series of observations within the Government warning that the rental bonus for young people,” for which President Pedro Sánchez had announced 200 million in the morning, “could worsen the housing problem.” “After more than two years, the measure has proven to be insufficient. Many autonomous communities have not yet managed all of the aid, and hundreds of young people are still waiting for the promised 250 euros per month. The bonus, instead of solving the structural problem of access to housing, opens up the possibility of public funds going to the rentiers, who continue to raise prices,” Sumar states in written statements. The PSOE-Sumar government agreement includes more funding for the “youth rental bonus.” “We will consolidate the Youth Rental Bonus as an essential element to facilitate access to affordable rent, and make it a long-term measure, expanding funding to reach the entire young population,” says the pact. “The bonus makes no sense without price limitations. It has been proven,” explains a Sumar spokesperson to justify their opposition.
The disagreement escalated throughout the day. Pedro Sánchez showed the socialist will to resonate with the essence of the protest from the morning. “I do not want a Spain where there are wealthy owners and poor tenants,” said the president at the World in Progress forum in Barcelona. In addition to asking the PP not to “put sticks in the wheels,” he announced the distribution of 200 million to the regions to finance the youth rental bonus and “new regulations” against “fraud” in tourist and seasonal rentals, measures that will likely go before the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. Before Sánchez spoke, Minister Rodríguez, in an interview on TVE, had already made the scheme clear: defend her measures, announce new ones, and pressure the PP, whom she criticized for both their historical legacy – the 1998 land law and the sale of housing to “vulture funds” in Madrid – as well as their current position – the refusal to implement price controls.
However, none of this convinced Sumar. Although they placed responsibility on the PP, the leftist group put the PSOE in the spotlight. Their spokesperson, Ernest Urtasun, turned housing into the theme of his press conference – only deviating to respond about the Koldo case – and from the first sentence showed that they were going their own way. “People are tired of patches. The minister’s initial reactions are clearly insufficient,” Urtasun stated, believing that the Government is not addressing the root of the problem. He reiterated three proposals of Sumar: withdraw housing aid from PP communities that do not implement price controls, make seasonal rentals more restrictive through a reform of the Urban Leases Law, and prohibit the purchase of housing in tensioned areas unless it is for residency.
Urtasun, who avoided discussing “red lines,” did not direct his criticisms towards Sánchez, but rather towards Rodríguez, although the president and his minister defend the same measures. Manuela Bergerot, spokesperson for Más Madrid, also targeted Rodríguez, seeing the protest as an “ultimatum” to the minister. Sumar, through their X account, even pointed to the top of the Government by sharing a video with the president’s announcements alongside a critical message. According to Sumar, the rental bonus is “a subsidy for rent-seeking.” The spokesperson for Catalunya en Comú, Joan Mena, also addressed Sánchez, warning him that his “future” depends on “his ability to solve the major challenge of our time.” Other usual Government partners, such as Podemos and EH Bildu, also criticized the measures announced, especially the youth bonus.
The demonstration exacerbates a dynamic previously observed: the PSOE and Sumar lack a shared narrative on housing. A Sumar deputy states that housing will be their “leitmotif” within the Government: “A fundamental reason is the attitude of the PSOE, which continues with a ‘yes but no’ approach, without taking measures to reduce the return on property investment, which is key. If you add to that the fact that this is a very significant issue for us, with our people deeply involved in that movement, and that we need issues in which to confront the PSOE so as not to be swept away, we are obliged to raise the decibels.” A source from Ferraz believes that Sumar is fueling a narrative that “benefits the right,” according to which “the Government is the main culprit.” They add that, although it is not easy to see short-term results, they have room to defend a model different from the PP, which also has to answer for their communities and municipalities. However, this could be jeopardized if there is a direct assignment of blame to the Government.
This source points out that the Socialists are trying to avoid the Government being singled out by “emphasizing the differences between what we do and what the PP does, because we do not want ideas like those of the 15M movement to spread, such as the PSOE being the PP with a red color and the PP being the PSOE with a blue color.” In this attempt to show firmness, a harsher rhetoric is being used. In addition to Minister Rodríguez’s criticism of the functioning of the “free market” in housing, Esther Peña, spokesperson for the PSOE, warned during her press conference: “If we have to intervene, we will intervene.” “Intervene” is not just any term. The PSOE usually prefers the word “regulate” to “intervene,” which is more typical of Sumar and connects with the “interventionism” with which the PP usually stigmatizes the left. Sumar, through a spokesperson, avoids assessing the verbal shift of the Socialists: “What we expect are concrete measures.” The PSOE, also through a spokesperson, reaffirms that the market “does not work” for housing: “It is not a free market. It is controlled by a few.”
Álvaro Ardura, professor of Urbanism at the Madrid School of Architecture and expert in housing policies, warns that managing the street agitation is more challenging for the PSOE and Sumar than for the right. “The PP and Vox are unfazed by these protests, they will not budge from their proposals and will blame the Government. However, Sumar faces the difficulty of addressing demands from the Rental Union without competencies and some very difficult issues to make transversal, such as the rent strike, and the PSOE is still trying to balance defending the real estate economic activity and the right to decent housing,” concludes the co-author of “First we take Manhattan. The creative destruction of cities.”
