You will not believe it but Sánchez also boasts of the terraces

Pedro Sánchez began his appearance in Congress on Wednesday in the same way that some Champions League matches end when a team manages to qualify at the last minute. Giving free rein to euphoria. Pointing to the stands. Shaking fists. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Price of light!! Tourism!! Growth!! Affiliation to Social Security!! European funds!! A pity that he did not take off his shirt and throw it to the socialist seats. “Mr. Handsome Goes Wild”, would have titled The Guardian.

If he even began referring to Easter and tourism: “Hotels full. Terraces up to the flag”. Terraces!! In the midst of so much ecstasy, the spirit of Díaz Ayuso had taken over him. In the name of God, abandon this child’s body!!

This was an appearance at his own request to report on the last European summit. He also joined the one demanded by the PP to talk about the summit with Morocco and the war in Ukraine. The Popular Party always complains that Sánchez does not tell what he has to tell. Well, at the beginning of the session almost half of its 89 seats were not occupied. They arrived in time to hear his spokeswoman. But it is that an hour and a half later there were only 21 left in the chamber. Not a typo: twenty-one. Cuca Gamarra had already spoken and they could pass widely from the other groups.

Sánchez returned to the stands almost three hours later with a reply to all the groups. Plenty of time to do other things, like going to the bathroom as many times as necessary.

The president reserved an exclusive for his speech a few days after the announcement of the housing bill. The Government will finance the promotion of 43,000 social rental homes that will be added to the 50,000 Sareb homes, a figure to which the adjective ‘presumed’ must be added due to reasonable doubts about their condition or because there are already people living in them.

Sánchez highlighted several data that demonstrate the terrible state of public housing in Spain. “We are the third country in the European Union with the most empty flats.” Less than 3% of the housing stock is public (the European average is 9%). Housing “is the origin of the greatest inequalities.”

If the situation is so negative, it is legitimate to wonder why your government has taken more than three years to send a bill to Congress or to dedicate extraordinary public funds to recover the rate of construction of publicly protected flats.

Cuca Gamarra laughed at the figures for new homes raised by Sánchez. He didn’t believe them. He recalled that the then minister José Luis Ábalos promised 100,000 affordable rental homes in March 2021. For this reason, the PP spokeswoman described the new promise as “bluff” and “reheated dish”.

The president brought from the office the numbers of the records of the PP in housing matters. 62,400 subsidized homes on an annual average with the Zapatero governments (a stage of strong economic expansion until everything collapsed). 15,800 with the Rajoy governments (in the Great Recession). 4,938 in 2017, the last full year of Rajoy, the property registrar who did not show much interest in giving work to his professional colleagues.

Like a knife stuck in the heart at the last moment, he commented that the number of VPOs promoted by the Logroño City Council was zero when Gamarra was its mayor and she endorsed all responsibility to the regional government.

The Socialists have discovered the importance of housing in this electoral year. In the lengthy negotiations between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, the former had until now preferred to bet on tax incentives in favor of apartment owners. It doesn’t seem like very successful.

In terms of political priorities, the PSOE should have been clear about this a long time ago. Zapatero said in 2002 that housing should stop being “a speculative asset” and become a “social right”. Twenty-one years ago.

What was more difficult to have an answer to was what Inés Arrimadas said, but that was because the spokesperson for Ciudadanos entered somewhat speculative territory. Speculative, but suggestive. To criticize the little that the PP and PSOE governments have done, she highlighted the hypothetical impact of difficult access to housing on the birth rate: “Do you know the children that could have been born?” Finally, there is talk of sex in the Chamber.

Less fun was the section of the debate on Morocco. A year after the surprising decision to support the Moroccan path of autonomy for the Sahara – and embarrassing for the PSOE allies on the left – Sánchez was able to present a tangible benefit on the advantages obtained by Spain in exchange for that cession, plus beyond negotiations or trade agreements with an uncertain future. He boasted that “the Atlantic Route (of irregular immigration) is the only route that decreases in Europe.” Arrivals to Ceuta and Melilla have fallen by 78% in Ceuta and Melilla and by 63% in the Canary Islands, he said. Those of Italy have risen 300%.

These data do not allow good comparisons between countries, because they depend on multiple factors, such as the increase in departures to Italy from Tunisia, a country now run by a dictator and with a serious economic crisis. Yes, it is possible that Rabat is carrying out the role of gendarme on the southern border of Spain, which he abandoned for a while when Mohamed VI felt like it.

The price of that transaction has not been small. Aitor Esteban expressed it in an almost brutal, but true way. “It has been difficult to stop immigration from Morocco at the cost of selling the Sahara, at the cost of selling the rights of the Sahrawis”. He asked her “not to puff out the decline in immigration.”

Someone might think that the principles of Spanish foreign policy are for sale. If the right price is received, they can be changed at the pleasure of the one who makes the best offer.