in focus

The Barcelona Centre for International Aairs Brief

CIDOB Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. May 2013

09
MAY 2013

Prole: The Mortgage-Aected Citizens Platform, a Grassroots Organization at the Forefront of the Social Protests
The Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) emerged in 2009, when the disastrous effects of the housing bubble burst became apparent. Today, it is recognized by a vast majority of Spanish citizens (78% according to the latest polls) as the most valued grass-root organization in Spain vastly over and above political parties. The PAH is certainly one of the most resolute social movements and civic platforms born out of the outrage at the PP-executed local cutbacks derived from the Troika-prescribed and Troika-monitored European austerity policies. Its specifics, the defense of the right to adequate housing, and its revolt against the unfolding foreclosures drama generated by mortgage defaults (350.000 Spanish families have been evicted from their homes since 2007) and the laws that make it possible, have placed under the spotlight a huge social problem which governments can hardly elude. Since 2012, the PAHs energetic militant campaign and the radical flavour of its direct-action methods, have multiplied its media relevance. The PAH is now centre-stage and evictions motivate a heated national debate.

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Origins, rst actions and the Stop Evictions Campaign

The origins of the PAH, which appeared in 2009 in Barcelona, is the so-called Movement for Decent Housing, a group of social activists who had been denouncing the unsustainable situation of the housing sector since 2006, before a sudden contraction of demand (December 2007) caused the free-fall of housing prices. This heterogeneous movement demanding the enforcement of the right enshrined in Article 47 of the Spanish Constitution (all Spaniards have the right to enjoy decent and adequate housing ), drew the publics attention to a number of negative circumstances: exorbitantly expensive housing, ramping speculation, high level of corruption related to real-estate transactions and urban development, the financial overstrain of first-home buyers, the huge stock of empty houses, and the meager supply of houses for rent. The PAH, which was conceived as a non-partisan assembly movement, spread from Barcelona through a horizontal net to other cities and communities, so that in May 2013 the local platforms in Spain numbered 147. The PAH has responded to the rapid increase in judicial proceedings resulting in eviction by

in focus CIDOB 09 . MAY

2013

CIDOB Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. May 2013

providing services to the affected citizens (the vast majority of them, unable to meet the payments on their mortgages due to the collapse of their income as a result of job losses) such as general and legal advice when dealing with banks. The purpose of this assistance is to prevent or delay as much as possible foreclosures through the courts, for they involve the auction of the foreclosed house to financial institutions, under very favourable conditions, and the subsequent eviction of the owners who, in many cases, remain in debt after losing their homes. In November 2010, the PAH took the option of passive resistance and launched the Stop Desahucios (Stop Evictions) civil disobedience campaign. Its aim was to prevent bailiffs and police from dislodging families from their foreclosed homes. In the following months, PAH activists rallies at the entrance of houses due to be intervened became a regular feature in the news. To this date, the PAH has managed to stop more than 600 evictions. To assist families whose eviction has been unavoidable and who are left on the street, the PAH carries out its so-called social work, promoting citizen reappropriation and the functional recovery of empty housing held by banks. In 2011, the junction with the 15-M Movement was key to the explosive growth of the PAH, which began to gather support also among staff in notaries and courts. Favourable town-hall motions and resolutions were passed in numerous locations. On 25 September 2011, the PAH called for a national mobilization in 41 Spanish cities. Today the PAH highlights the results of its fight in the field, including hundreds of payments in kind, debt cancellations and the rehousing of evicted families in their now rented old homes. The PAH is about defending rights and not about evading responsibilities: these alternatives, they insist, show the viability of reasoned dialogue and negotiated formulae between debtors and creditors.

Three Minimum Demands, a Popular Legislative Initiative and Ada Colau

From its onset, one of the PAHs main objectives has been to change theanachronistic Spanish mortgage law. In its manifesto Against Mortgage Fraud, For The Right To Housing, the PAH denounces the bad practices in the Spanish banking system and the passive complicity of government, the concealment of relevant information, and the over-valued appraisals during the Brick Boom. Mortgage default is triggered, they argue, by the conjunction of banks greed and economic crisis. Back in March 2010, the PAH wrote down a proposal to amend the mortgage law to include payment in kind, so that in cases of first-home debtors, if the bank is to end up keeping the house, the debt is cancelled --regardless of the current, diminished value of the house. The same month, it took the first steps to present Congress with an Iniciativa Legislativa Popular (ILP) which includes three minimum demands: retroactive payment in kind as the favoured formula for debt cancellation, moratorium or suspension of all first-home foreclosure evictions, and the creation of a of social-rent housing offer out of vacant houses which banks own now, but are not selling. The ILP proposal (its motto: Dont Let Them Mortgage Your Life) was met with contempt by the major parliamentary groups and Congress obstructed at first the start of the collecting of signatures required to pursue the matter. In February 2013, after a nine-month campaign, the PAH delivered 1,4 million signatures of Spanish citizens (half a million sufficed) supporting the ILP.

in focus CIDOB 09 . MAY

2013

CIDOB Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. May 2013

The Peoples Party (PP), which at first opposed the admission of the ILP for study and eventual debate by Congress, changed position due to the social alarm caused by suicide cases of people about to be evicted from their homes and mounting pressure from the streets, or so the PAH would have it then. The measures which Mariano Rajoys government has finally adopted are quite clearly insufficient to the PAH: a good practice code for financial institutions and a decree on urgent measures to protect mortgage holders with no means, which introduced a twoyear moratorium on evictions for the most vulnerable groups. In March, the European Court of Justice ruled that the Spanish law on foreclosures violated EU law. The PAH felt vindicated. Catalan-born Ada Colau, co-founder and spokesperson for the PAH, has taken on great notoriety for her strong statements to the press, her success in the social networks, and a tough intervention of hers at the Congressional Economics Commission, where she described current legislation as widespread fraud and referred to a bank representative as a criminal. Charismatic and articulate, Colau has recently published a book, Vidas hipotecadas (Mortgaged Lives), where she puts figures and faces to the evictions drama.

The Escraches campaign and the Peoples Party virulent reactions

The PP decided to merge the bill proposal generated by the ILP with a bill the Government had in project, which meant the distortion and perversion of the former. To step up pressure on them, and since there were lives at risk, the PAH launched an escrache campaign that is, peaceful rallies in front of MPs and Government ministers private homes, marking them before Spanish citizens. Both the Government and the PP reacted promptly. President Rajoy condemned the escraches and called them profoundly undemocratic. The most extreme assessments came from the party Secretary General, Mara Dolores de Cospedal, and the former President of the Madrid Community, Esperanza Aguirre, who both compared the escraches with pure Nazism, ETA bullying and the worst totalitarianisms in history. Subsequently, the Ministry of the Interior prohibited escraches at less than 300 metres from politicians homes. The Socialists and the Left parties decried the PP, demanding however that the escraches be non-violent. The Supreme Court Chief Justice, on his part, declared that this type of protest was an example of the freedom of demonstration; while the Attorney General warned that he would act firmly if harassment went beyond the constitutional frame. As a result of these allegations, the PAH addressed explanatory messages to PP voters, while denouncing the criminalization attempts and the Governments lack of political will --S se puede, pero no quieren (Yes, they can, but they dont want to)--, as witnessed by their rejection of the three key points in the ILP. On 8 May the Spanish Senate, with the sole votes of the PP, duly approved the Draft Law on Measures to Strengthen the Protection of Mortgage Debtors, Debt Re-structuring and Social Rent. Two days later, a judge shelved the complaint against an escrache in front of VicePresident Soraya Senz de Santamaras home, considering that the activists were exerting their right of expression and assembly, without threats or coercion. Simultaneously, the PAH staged a protest against Rajoy in Barcelona, which Ada Colau said it put an end of the escrache campaign, while not ruling out retaking it in the future, along with other civil disobedience campaigns. Web: http://afectadosporlahipoteca.com

in focus CIDOB 09 . MAY

2013