The road to Moncloa begins in Catalonia, a community where the PP is trying to get out of the electoral pit into which it sank as a result of the independence process, as an essential step for Alberto Núñez Feijóo to become the next Prime Minister.
Knowing that without a good result in Barcelona, with 32 deputies in Congress, his chances of victory are almost nil, the popular leader returned yesterday to the Catalan capital to inaugurate the first of the conventions that the PP will celebrate throughout Spain, and that will be the basis of your program.
And being Catalonia "the community where the most illegal usurpations of housing" take place -43% of those in the entire State, according to the figures that Feijóo accepted-, the theme chosen to start the cycle with which the PP will put ready his ideological project for the 2023 elections, was the occupation.
For Feijóo, it is one of the "priority" problems of the Catalans, who "are evicted from their homes" while the politicians who govern them "look the other way". In her sights, the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, who comes from anti-eviction activism, and the coalition of PSOE and United We Can, which oscillates between "lack of definition and division" because of their divergent approaches to the phenomenon. .
For this reason, faced with a government in which "there are ministers who understand the occupation" and which it accuses of protecting "those who believe that they can live at the expense of the work and effort of others", the PP will take the Cortes a bill against illegal occupation. With it, the popular ones intend to detach the phenomenon of the occupation from the cost of housing, which the left relates "in a demagogic way".
Among these measures – which will be discussed, Feijóo predicted, before the end of the year – is the urgent eviction, within 24 hours, in cases where the occupants cannot prove a valid legal title to be in a home. And an even faster, immediate eviction, in the case of a flagrant occupation, in which the house has been broken down.
In addition, the PP proposes to strengthen the penalties for the crime of usurpation, with sentences of up to three years in prison, and improve legal protection against "the occupation mafias." And, likewise, that the squatters cannot register in the register.
On the other hand, the popular demand that the amounts paid in the real estate tax (IBI) and the property tax corresponding to the period in which they have suffered the illegal occupation of their houses be returned to the owners. "Occupying is a criminal activity," argued Feijóo, for whom "a family without resources must always be helped and protected", but an illegal occupant "must not be evicted, but rather evicted from the home immediately".
Regarding the initiatives to facilitate access to housing, instead of regulating rents, a measure that, in the opinion of the PP, has not worked in any of the cities where it has been applied, such as Paris, Berlin or Barcelona -although the Catalan law has been annulled by the Constitutional Court–, proposed to “lower land prices” and “avoid speculation in construction”, as well as offer aid, “essential” for young people.
But apart from the subject of the convention, Feijóo took the opportunity to talk about Catalan politics: "The independentists have left Catalonia without a government," he said, referring to the divorce between ERC and Junts, which leads the Government of Pere Aragonès to hold on to a meager parliamentary minority. "Luckily they want Catalonia", ironically the president of the PP, who, once again, once again defined the procés as a "very bad business for all Catalans".
Thus, Feijóo, in tune with the leader of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, in charge of his presentation before a very crowded audience, offered himself as a way to "recompose civil rights and freedoms" that, in his opinion, "to Sometimes they have been threatened” in Catalonia.
"Others presented themselves as an alternative to independence, and now they have run to guarantee the continuity of independence in the Generalitat," he charged against the socialists. "We are never going to support or secure the independence government, because it is always bad for Catalonia," he said.
“Everything that happens in Catalonia worries us”, said a Feijóo who, since he was elected as Pablo Casado’s successor at the head of the PP, has made visible efforts to promote a “cordial Catalanism”, using his long experience as president of a community that is also historic, and bilingual, like Galicia.
“We are going to defend the Constitution, the best political work that we Spaniards have done for centuries, and the Statute. And all those who feel Catalan and Spanish will have a continuous defense in this their home that is the PP of Catalonia”, concluded the conservative leader.
