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Aposta na crise habitacional para se manter no poder. Como tantas vezes acontece na história, esta crise ficou condensada num caso, o despejo de Maricarmen, de 87 anos, que morreu duas semanas depois, no hospital, sem chegar a voltar a casa. Tinha sido alcançado um acordo para regressar, pendente apenas da alta médica.

A crise habitacional é para a direita o que a imigração é para a esquerda, o calcanhar de Aquiles que, por razões identitárias e ideológicas específicas, nenhuma das duas consegue fundamentalmente resolver. Apesar de tudo, o desgaste de Sánchez e dos seus aliados é tal que dificilmente algo os poderá salvar, e o PP, aliado ao Vox, vai ficar com o poder. Mas até ao lavar dos cestos é vindima.

Importa, por isso, expor as linhas vermelhas que Santiago Abascal, o espúrio líder do Vox, impõe ao PP (o provável vencedor das eleições) para realizar a coligação que permitirá a sua chegada ao poder. São três: a desregulação da economia, a famosa remigração e a prioridade nacional. Vou dizer-lhes o que penso de cada uma.

A desregulação económica é uma bajulação ao poder económico. Hoje, como no passado, o que se pretende é aliciá-lo para depois o subordinar. Prometem-se cortes de impostos, privatizações e o fim de regulações para depois impor a sua lei. Assim faz Trump, com as tarifas, a golden share na US Steel, a participação no capital da Intel, a pressão sobre escritórios de advogados e universidades ou o uso das empresas de IA como instrumento para dominar e subordinar o resto do mundo.

A remigração é o termo que se apoderou do imaginário de muitos europeus nesta vaga de regeneração identitária, e cuja versão máxima inclui a expulsão de cidadãos de origem estrangeira para, por milagre, tudo resolver. Sobre a prioridade nacional, o que dizer? O nativismo é para a direita radical europeia o que o nacionalismo foi para o fascismo, a sublimação de todos os problemas com uma esmola que preenche a alma. Quem pertence a uma nação histórica e heroica é maior do que ele próprio. Mesmo pobre e em dificuldades, pode sentir-se superior. É a troca do humanismo universal pela pertença à nação. É o salário psicológico da “europitude”.

A crise material entrou na nova política europeia pela via da identidade. Em Espanha, ainda não será o Vox a ganhar, mas sim o PP de Feijóo, um partido da direita tradicional em desconstrução. Na Extremadura e em Aragão já assinou com o Vox a prioridade nacional, ainda que a tente disfarçar de “arraigo”. Em Portugal, segundo as sondagens, a direita radical já disputa o primeiro lugar com o PS. Estamos todos a observar Espanha, porque em breve também nós teremos de decidir. E se o Partido Socialista quer voltar a governar, terá de mudar muito, a começar pela forma como escolhe os seus candidatos à Assembleia da República. Primárias abertas, que entreguem aos eleitores a escolha e voltem a galvanizar quem há muito deixou de se sentir representado.

The post Não vos dão casa. Dão-vos uma pátria appeared first on A Voz de Trás-os-Montes.

Tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets in France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Albania. In doing so, they have joined what has been dubbed the Generation Z revolution (those born between 1997 and 2012), which over the past two years helped bring down the government of Bangladesh, force the resignation of Nepal’s prime minister and dissolve Madagascar’s government. Now, in Europe, on the eve of an electoral supercycle that will determine the governments of four of the European Union’s five most populous countries (France, Italy, Spain and Poland), young people are sharing a frustration that opportunities for their generation are becoming scarcer and their future increasingly insecure.

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Pedro Sánchez has turned a parliamentary defeat over housing into a general election on 29th November.

The calculation is clear: force Spain’s political argument onto territory more favourable to the left before migration, corruption allegations and parliamentary paralysis return to the foreground. But the polls suggest that the gamble could still deliver power to the centre-right People’s Party and Vox.

Pedro Sánchez’s decision to dissolve Spain’s parliament nine months ahead of schedule is more than an admission that his minority government had reached the limits of what it could achieve in the Congress of Deputies. It is an attempt to choose the terms on which his government will be judged.

The immediate trigger was the defeat of two emergency housing decrees after the conservative People’s Party (PP), Vox and Catalan separatist Junts voted against them. Housing had already moved rapidly to the centre of Spanish politics following the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the Madrid flat where she had lived for 71 years, followed by large demonstrations across the country. EU Today has previously reported on both the housing protests across Spain and Sánchez’s subsequent decision to call the election.

The prime minister is now attempting to convert legislative weakness into electoral advantage.

In his announcement on 5 October, Sánchez presented the election as a choice between a broader progressive majority capable of advancing social legislation and an opposition that had obstructed measures on housing and other domestic priorities. The government reinforced that strategy a day later by approving revised versions of the two housing decrees, containing 21 measures including tax incentives, assistance for first-time buyers and measures intended to increase supply. They will require validation by the Diputación Permanente, the standing parliamentary body that remains after dissolution.

The political calculation is straightforward. Housing offers Sánchez an issue on which anger is directed not only at government but at landlords, property investors, regional authorities and political parties opposing stronger regulation. The eviction of Abascal gave that argument a human symbol and transformed a long-running affordability problem into an immediate political confrontation.

That does not mean the strategy will work.

Most polling continues to place the PSOE behind the PP. Surveys put the Socialists at roughly 28 per cent, while Vox has risen to around 18 per cent. A PP-Vox combination is currently the only bloc consistently projected to command an outright parliamentary majority. One Sigma Dos survey published after the election announcement projected the two parties winning 203 of the Congress’s 350 seats.

Sánchez therefore appears to be playing less for immediate dominance than for mobilisation.

His problem before the housing protests was not simply the strength of the right. The broader left had become fragmented, while the government was being damaged by disputes over migration, particularly following the crisis in Ceuta, as well as corruption investigations involving figures associated with the PSOE. At the same time, Junts had become an increasingly unreliable parliamentary partner, leaving the government unable to guarantee major legislation or a new budget.

Housing changes the subject.

It allows Sánchez to argue that the central question is not whether his coalition has governed smoothly, but whether voters want a parliament prepared to intervene more aggressively in the housing market. The PP, however, is contesting precisely that framing. Alberto Núñez Feijóo argues that the housing shortage is itself a product of Sánchez’s eight years in government and has promised to raise annual construction towards 200,000 homes while reducing taxes.

The election may therefore develop into a dispute over responsibility rather than diagnosis. Both sides accept that housing has become a major national problem; they differ sharply over whether regulation or additional supply should dominate the response.

There is also a wider European dimension. Housing affordability is increasingly politically disruptive across the EU, including in major cities where construction has failed to keep pace with household formation, migration and demand for short-term accommodation. EU Today has examined similar pressures in Berlin’s housing market. Spain could now provide a test of whether housing can become powerful enough as an electoral issue to reverse the wider European movement towards the right.

For Ukraine, however, the consequences are likely to be less dramatic than Spain’s domestic political contest might suggest.

Sánchez committed €1 billion in bilateral military support to Ukraine for 2026, with Spain putting its cumulative bilateral military assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion at almost €4 billion. Madrid has also trained more than 9,000 Ukrainian military personnel.

Spain is also home to a considerably larger Ukrainian community than the roughly 300,000 figure frequently cited. Government data showed 353,009 Ukrainian nationals holding valid residence documentation at the end of June, including 262,782 under temporary protection.

A PP-led government would alter Madrid’s domestic priorities and potentially its approach to defence spending and migration, particularly if Vox were required to sustain a parliamentary majority. Yet there is little basis at present for assuming that a change of government would produce a reversal of Spain’s fundamental position on Russia’s invasion or membership of the European and Atlantic security structures supporting Ukraine.

The more immediate question is whether Sánchez can make housing important enough to overcome the electoral arithmetic confronting him.

Calling the election has allowed him to escape a parliament in which his legislative coalition was steadily disintegrating and to enter a campaign around an issue capable of mobilising his electorate. It has not changed the fact that the PP and Vox begin that campaign with the stronger numbers.

Sánchez has chosen the battlefield. On 29th November, Spain will decide whether that was enough.