A constitutional right. A business. A financial refuge. A matter of political confrontation. And, above all, a harsh reality that excludes new generations from access to property and forces them to face an increasingly tense rental market. All that is housing. In addition, of course, to the reason why this Sunday around thirty organizations, led by the Madrid Tenants’ Union, have called for a demonstration between Atocha and Plaza de Callao, under the motto “housing is a right, not a business.” ”.
Housing and its unattainable prices have been installed on the public agenda in the midst of a crossroads of reproaches between parties, autonomous communities and even between government partners without effective measures being seen on the immediate horizon to stop the uncontrollable rise in prices. The minister of the sector, Isabel Rodríguez, says that because there are communities, especially that of Madrid, that refuse to apply the price index of the housing law due to “ideological dogmatism.” And from the regional government they defend that because the left-wing policies are “ineffective and interventionist” and because the price index is a “real estate suicide” that favors the underground economy.
The truth is that Spain, whose Government approved the first housing law of democracy in the previous legislature, is part of the club of EU countries with the lowest percentage of social housing built. It occupies position number 18. At the bottom of the ranking are Romania, with 1.5%; Estonia, with 1.7%; Croatia, with 1.8%; Portugal, with 2% and Spain, with 2.5%. All this compared to the Netherlands, with 30%, followed by Austria, with 24%, and Denmark, with 20.9%. And Spaniards are increasingly divided between those who accumulate properties and obtain rental income and citizens who, with stable work, cannot access housing either to own or rent due to the exorbitant prices.
That the right and the left disagree about how to confront the problem is no surprise, but the novelty is that the left has found in housing a reason to confront even between government partners. So much so that this Sunday Sumar will be present, like Podemos, in a demonstration in which the minister of the sector, from the PSOE, will be asked to resign.
And Isabel Rodríguez, who does not share many of the interventionist proposals of her partners, such as prohibiting buying and selling for a period of time as proposed by Yolanda Díaz, is reasonably satisfied with the degree of compliance with the commitments regarding housing. acquired in the coalition agreement.
For example, among what has already been accomplished, the development of the measures contemplated in the Law for the Right to Housing to contain prices stands out, including both tax incentives and the reference price index that allows identifying the municipalities and districts that They are considered stressed areas, to promote the implementation of regulation. But, also the extension to the average income (€37,800) of the threshold to access support measures for those affected by the rise in mortgage interest rates, the consolidation of the Young Rental Bonus as an essential element to facilitate access to affordable rent and the promotion of a registry of empty homes, based on the definition and information published by the INE in coordination with the autonomous communities and city councils.
From Rajoy’s 453 million to 3,500 in 2024
It is precisely with the autonomous communities with which the ministry maintains an open war not because of the lack of resources but because of the story about responsibility for the imbalance between supply and demand and high prices. Since Pedro Sánchez is President of the Government, the budgets for this chapter have been multiplied by eight, going from the 453 million that Mariano Rajoy’s Executive allocated to the current 3,500. In fact, the housing policies applied by the autonomous communities are 70% financed by the General State Administration, despite the fact that powers are shared.
The Ministry of Housing understands that the Government of Spain has not and will not lack resources, but they also urge the communities to allocate more money in their budgets to this chapter, following the example of Catalonia, whose president, Salvador Illa, has just announce that it will complement the aid it receives from the State with 1.1 billion each year from its own resources.
The data from the different regional budgets put in black and white the percentage of money that each administration has allocated to housing policies in the last four years. Sometimes the proportion is quite eloquent.
In the last four years, Andalusia has budgeted a total of 1,688 million euros, of which 859, 50.87%, were transferred by the Government of Spain within the framework of the State Housing Plan, nominative subsidies and the Rental Bonus. Young. Aragon, for its part, received between 2021 and 2024 a total of 168 million of the 240 million budgeted, which represents 70% of the funds allocated to housing, including in this case also that contributed from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan .
Asturias allocated 269 million euros to housing policies, of which 53.5% were transferred from the State (144 million) while the proportion in the Balearic Islands grew to 63.7%, in the Canary Islands, to 51.26%. , and, in Cantabria, at 88.86% (90 million of the 102 budgeted).
Castilla y León, for its part, budgeted 174 million between 2021 and 2024 while the amount transferred to it by the Government of Spain amounted to 327, which represents 187% overfinancing by the State. Alfonso Fernández Mañueco is the region that dedicated the least money to housing. The effort in Castilla-La Mancha was greater on the part of the Board, since of the 673 million only 39% were transfers from the State, while in Catalonia the proportion was 50.67% of the 1,971 million budgeted.
In the Valencian Community, which together with Catalonia and Andalusia was one of the autonomies that allocated the most money to housing policies until reaching 1,459 million, less than half (43.70%) came from the General State Administration programs. Extremadura was one of those that benefited the least from funds from the Government of Spain, since of the 432 million allocated, only 36% came from State transfers. Much less than what was assumed in Galicia, where the amount transferred by the State accounted for 62% of the 564 million budgeted by the Xunta.
Madrid, with one of the governments most critical of the housing policies of the coalition chaired by Pedro Sánchez, allocated 1,400 million, of which almost 67% were financed with transfers from the State, while in Murcia the percentage between what was budgeted the community and what it received from the Government of Spain exceeded 102%. Navarra was in proportion to the autonomy to which the least funds came from the State, only 18.7% of the 328 million that appear in its budgets between 2021-2024, followed by the Basque Country, where the percentage between what was budgeted and what transferred was 33%, while in La Rioja it was close to 43%.
In no community is there information available on what was executed each year or on the money transferred in the budgets from one year to another. But what in no case can be said is that the problem is due to lack of financing.
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