"If we want to solve the housing problem each people cannot act alone"
- On May 5, the first public hearing of the Housing Union Network of Hego Euskal Herria took place, consisting of six unions from the four countries. The press conference helped to publicize the network and its causes and, above all, to read the new Spanish Housing Law. The unions are very critical of the law agreed by the PSOE, Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu. Along with the identification of shortcomings, some positive aspects have been recognized, but they stress that the law itself does not provide instruments to ensure the development of these aspects. The adoption of the new law has now acquired an “electoral tone” and consider that the impoverished will continue to impoverish and enrich the owners. We have talked briefly with Maite Martínez Etxebarria and Ane Salvador Errasti, members of the network, once the press conference is over.
In October 2022 they made some meetings (here you can read the chronicle), but today is their first public appearance as a housing union network in Hego Euskal Herria. Why did you create the network?
Maite Martínez: It has been almost three years since the housing unions began to create in different places in the Basque Country, and one of the basic ideas is that if we want to solve the housing problem each people cannot act alone. And what's more, if we want to make a strong fight against capitalism, we need to go beyond housing and premises.
Ane Salvador: We always say that we work locally, that is essential, but that our approach is not localistic, because we understand that this can be a limit. Our geographical and political framework is Euskal Herria. At the moment we have formed the network of Hego Euskal Herria.
In the Northern Basque Country, important popular housing initiatives have emerged for a long time, especially in recent months. Do you have any relationship with them?
A.S: That's where we are.
A few years ago housing unions were created in Euskal Herria. Have you made any feedback on the road network so far?
A.S: Three years of development confirm that the struggle for housing is a gap, an opportunity to break and territorialize the class struggle in our neighborhoods, towns and territories; a response to material needs is an interesting way to build a political community and activate the struggle. We believe that it has been demonstrated that this hypothesis also works in the Basque Country.
"Responding to material needs is an interesting way to build a political community and activate the struggle"
In the hearing they have made a fundamental assessment of the new Spanish Housing Law. The law is giving much to say, you have listed both positive and negative aspects, perhaps more negative.
M.M: Starting with the positive part, one is that the fees to be paid to the real estate, which until now the tenant had to pay, will be paid by the homeowner.
A.S: Compared to the 2022 draft law, advances are a number of limitations to real estate business. Open evictions, i.e. redundancies which take place without date or time, are prohibited. This was done to prevent solidarity and popular response, and it will be illegal under this law. It also modifies the concept of large owners, who until now were large owners with more than ten dwellings, now more than 5. But these benefits also have limitations.
What are these limitations?
A.S: Those who ensure compliance with these points that the Law does not contain any specific instrument. And that sanctions or consequences are not determined in the event of non-compliance. We already have two housing laws in force in Euskal Herria, both of which state that housing is a guaranteed right, but it is not complied with because concrete instruments are not developed. They are at most expressions of goodwill that remain in nowhere.
M.M: These positive points may involve small advances, but in any case they are far from our objectives: housing cannot be a commodity.
On the negative side, what are the main shortcomings of the law?
M.M. First regularisation of rents. It is being very cited, but it is a false message: the law does not put a ceiling on the price of rentals. For years, various housing and movement unions have claimed that one of the ways to reduce the tragedy that the working class experiences with renting can be that. But the law does not put a ceiling on the rental price, but on the price increase: it allows a maximum increase of 2% for next year and 3% for the two years.
A.S: For the next two years yes, but thereafter the rise limit is not defined. At a time when the real wage of workers decreases and decreases, that is, the essence of the problem is maintained and its severity increases exponentially.
"The law does not put a ceiling on the rental price, but on the price rise"
At the press conference they also explained some points of which the law does not address among their shortcomings. What should the law collect, what has been left out?
M.M: The tourism industry. Airbnb, hotels, tourist homes, vulture bottoms -- they're one of the main agents of speculation, not even mentioned in the law. Those responsible are once again outside the legal limits. On the other hand, the law states that 100,000 new dwellings will be built, but does not refer to the number of empty dwellings: 4 million in the State, 275,000 in the Southern Basque Country. What about these empty homes? Will measures never be taken? Building more is not the solution.
A.S: The law distinguishes at all times the stressed areas from the unstressed ones, but does not provide for measures to control these agents causing these "tensions". In relation to what Maite says, the problem is not the lack of housing, but the division of property and capitalist accumulation.
They also stress the situation of the unemployed
M.M: These small benefits that the law can bring will not affect impoverished people who live without papers because they are people without rights. They will continue to be condemned to invisibility.
A.S: In housing unions, we see that every day: many of the people who come to our assemblies don't exist in the eyes of the law. Eviction of these people, many of them illegal, does not even refer to the new Housing Law, deepening invisibility.
"These small legal benefits will also not affect impoverished people living without papers."
After today’s hearing, do you plan the following steps as a network?
M.M: On the one hand, the press conference is the first step of a small campaign on the Housing Law, from now on we will publish some posters and videos to make our position and our struggle visible. On the other hand, last year we held a series of meetings at the level of Hego Euskal Herria, which we will repeat this year in autumn. Meanwhile, we continue to work on our training, on the political foundations and on integration.
A.S: We are under construction.
* Read the full text of the appearance at:
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