Today we have 9 July. In a month, on 9 August, the last measures adopted by the Spanish Government in the field of housing, those corresponding to Royal Decree-Law 8/2021, will be extinguished. In the case of people in vulnerable situations, the suspension of supplies and evictions, the extraordinary extension of rental contracts and the moratorium or cancellation of rental rent stand out. Minister José Luis Ábalos has already advanced his intention to extend the suspension of evictions indefinitely until the adoption of the new housing law, to which reference has been made so often. In this situation, however, several questions come to mind. What cases will this new decree regulate the suspension of redundancies? What will happen to other measures such as the suspension of supply cuts or the moratorium on rents? Will these also be extended, or will their effect cease from 9 August?

In this regard, despite the extensions of the decrees, the understanding of the true nature of these measures is essential in order to clarify their limits and the future they present to us. About two weeks ago, from the Socialist Council of the Region of Pamplona, we launched a campaign with the motto “Today, the misery of tomorrow”. In the reading of the campaign we explained that these measures are scarce, which seek to maintain social unrest in a context of crisis in which COVID-19 has deepened. But the limits of these few are obvious, as time has shown. Indeed, the criteria and formalities necessary to qualify for the measures exclude a large number of people, so evictions and supply cuts have been maintained over the past year. In the case of the Foral Community of Navarra, the number of evictions has increased by 47.8% this year, compared to the first quarter of 2021 and 2020.

Furthermore, these cuts will be paid for by our misery tomorrow, because the State has opted for the path of indebtedness. On the one hand, these measures encourage the indebtedness of the cohabitation units, since the moratoriums on rental rent and micro-credits only delay the problem, and on the other hand, they increase the public debt, since the State will assume both the losses of the large owners and the debts that the subsidised tenants are unable to pay. And we know what the increase in public debt means: new reform packages that will deepen the exploitation and looting of the working class to deal with the crisis.

Therefore, in the coming months new measures and government propaganda are foreseeable, but we have to look later on: by decree, the housing problem will remain the same and everything seems to indicate that the situation will worsen. The famous cases of suicide in recent months due to evictions and only the three homeless people who died in May in Navarra are the hardest expressions of a structural problem that no decree will be able to eliminate as long as capitalist society exists. Faced with this, and taking the lessons of the enriching experience of the Housing Union of Vitoria-Gasteiz, we are committed to ensuring that all the improvements to combat in housing are in the same direction: free, universal and quality housing. Because housing will only be a good for the well-being of the whole of society by freeing itself from the logic of merchandise. Without that direction, all the measures taken will be scarce, and whatever they give us in our mouths will take us out of our pocket. For all these reasons, from the Socialist Council of the Region of Pamplona we have already begun to organize ourselves with a clear vision: in the face of its scarce remains, a free, universal and quality housing.