After the initial flash, it is time to look seriously at the bill on housing that will be approved by the Congress of Deputies on Thursday. Those of us who are committed to progress cannot help but rejoice that this right is developed for the first time recognized in the Constitution and whose deployment is highly complex, both due to the framework of powers outlined in the Magna Carta itself and due to the importance of housing as an economic sector, from the point of view of developers, builders and large and small owners and from that of citizens, especially the youngest who have special difficulties in the so-called stressed areas. Most who support the new law say it is intended to boost affordable housing and social renting. Especially in the second aspect, Spain has significant room for improvement to catch up with other European countries with a long tradition in the intervention of the public sector in this area.
Housing is such a serious problem that does not support that shortcuts are applied in order to solve it. And that is what the current wording does if it is not improved. In the first place, achieving the objectives set by the President of the Government himself involves reaching an agreement with city councils and autonomous communities, which are the ones that have the powers over both the land and subsidized housing. And so requires an exercise of politics in its best sense, agreeing with those who do not think alike and contemplating not only the interests of those who shout more, in one direction or another, but from the analysis of the needs of all those affected. Those who are looking for a flat, those who promote them or those who have land to do so. It is a question of solving the imbalances and not of demagogy treating an entire sector as if they were all vulture funds or speculators, which is not so in any way.
That is why it is important that this housing law respect other rights recognized by the Constitution as is the case of the right to property and free competition. If the final wording follows the spirit of the Catalan law, we are going to enter a long period of legal uncertainty, because both the affected sectors and the opposition will appeal in defense of a collision of rights that the Constitutional Court has already resolved in the case of the Catalan standard, in this case due to a matter of jurisdiction. Continuing on this path still helps the promoters to improve their electoral results on 28M, but it will not alleviate the problem of those who are looking for housing and cannot afford it even if they have a job. Reserving a percentage of the promotions for social flats or the cap on prices are an apparently quick path, but the European model involves the promotion of public housing, whether for sale or for rent. That is slower, more complex, less gimmicky but certainly more effective. In any case, it is too ambitious a project to start up when there are only eight months to go until the end of the legislature. It would be necessary, in any case, an agreement between those who govern or may govern in the different administrations, remembering that we are, constitutionally, a social and market economy.