As if he were Émile Zola with his J’accuse! (I accuse), Juan Lobato, the regional leader of the PSOE, takes advantage of this Thursday’s plenary session in the Madrid Assembly to launch a battery of accusations against the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, regarding housing. He is a different Cub, unknown for days, as if the rumor that his future at the head of the party in the community is in question had prompted him to raise his tone, mark territory and show some fangs that until now he only showed on rare occasions. . Urged to defend the policies of La Moncloa, which wants to focus the next conference of presidents on housing problems, and of the PSOE, which wants to bring to all Parliaments the proposal that public residences can never be sold, Lobato launches into a face to face against Ayuso to try to leave a mark.
“I accuse you, Mrs. Ayuso, of having promised to build 25,000 homes, and of not having delivered even 500 in five years, especially leaving young people behind,” he begins while the baroness listens to him from her seat. “I accuse her of having raised the price of public housing by 60%,” he continues. “We are the worst community in all of Spain in the management of the youth rental bonus. “It takes more than a year to pay the young people, who need the money now!” he adds. And he insists: “I accuse her of boycotting the housing law, not only preventing city councils, families, young people, from temporarily limiting the increase in rental prices.”
As the PSOE believes it has found a key issue here for its opposition work, the socialists are accumulating initiatives and interventions on housing. Its main mayors have asked the Community to declare Getafe, Alcorcón or Fuenlabrada stressed areas, which would allow rent increases to be limited. As the PP Executive, on which the application of this measure included in the state law depends, refuses, the councilors will soon register a legislative initiative in the Chamber. And there, in the regional Parliament, Lobato’s PSOE has just demanded that subsidized housing cannot be put on the free market.
Questioned as he knows he is, Lobato cannot avoid a reference to her situation – “I see her very interested lately in having my chair moved,” he says about the baroness’ frequent references to Francisco Martín, the Government delegate -) , and asks that 300 euros be deducted immediately and temporarily from citizens’ rent. Then, he sits down to listen to the regional president’s response.
Ayuso, who has just announced a new line of aid for the scrapping of vehicles without an environmental label (his way of reacting to the cancellation of Madrid 360’s low-emission zones), picks up the gauntlet and returns it, trying to make the criticism of Cubs are like a boomerang that ends up hitting whoever throws it.
“[El de la vivienda] It is a problem that is in all of Spain. And I accuse you of lying if you say otherwise,” he questions the leader of the socialists. “Hasn’t the price of housing multiplied in the big cities throughout Spain, Mr. Lobato?” he asks. “Isn’t it true that the prices in Madrid, if we compare them with those of other European and world capitals, are not at all the same prices?” he insists. “To access housing, the first thing you need is quality employment, which your government denies to young people,” the response is. “Now they intend to confront the tenants with the owners. Please manage and rise to the occasion, because this problem is in all of Spain.”
Then, when Manuela Bergerot, the leader of Más Madrid, intervenes, the crossed accusations, the criticism from one side to the other, the scuffles continue. But when it’s all over, everything stays the same: sky-high rents, housing purchase prices accessible only to a few, and the consequent protest demonstration called for October 13.
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