Pedro Blanco underlines the Government’s constitutional commitment to access decent housing for citizens

The government delegate in Galicia, Pedro Blanco, today stressed the constitutional commitment of the government with access to decent housing for all citizens, “responding to one of the main concerns of society.” He did so from the Pazo de Mariñán, in Bergondo, where he presided over the institutional act commemorating the XLVI anniversary of the approval of the Spanish Constitution, which was attended by the president of the Provincial Council of A Coruña, Valentín González Formoso; the mayor of Bergondo, Alejandra Pérez Máquez; the councillor for the Presidency, Justice and Sports of the Xunta de Galicia, Diego Calvo, and the under-delegate of the Government in A Coruña, María Rivas, and the under-delegate of the Government, as well.

Pedro Blanco highlighted the Government’s work to give effect to the fundamental right to a decent and suitable housing through policies that the citizens palpate in their daily lives. “It is clear that, without housing, there are no valid life projects,” said the delegate, “and that is why the Executive of Pedro Sánchez developed the first Housing Law of democracy, transferring the mandate of article 47 of the Constitution to a normative text.” In this line, he added: “What is now at stake, and what society demands of us, is that the Administrations continue to move forward and provide effective responses to the housing emergency that, for the Government of Spain, is one of the main challenges of the coming years.”

In order to achieve this, the delegate appealed to co-governance among all the administrations, which he extended to the Government “to overcome the differences and respond to the constitutional mandate, together and responsibly, turning this shared will into a good policy for the Galicians and the Galicians”.

Defense of the State of Autonomies

It also highlighted the very model of co-governance, capable of guaranteeing equal opportunities in the different territories “from the constitutional distribution of competences and institutional loyalty”. In this sense, he claimed the State of the Autonomies and harshly charged against those who are against him but want to govern in them: “They’re old acquaintances but they have new clothes.”

Pedro Blanco also pointed out against these political groups by criticizing them as those who “show themselves to be great patriots but reject our memory, disrupt the legitimate right to information with lies and lies or defend the family but deny the rights of women.”

Guarantor of equality between men and women

In this sense, the delegate stressed the articles that proclaim effective equality between men and women, “since each of the machista crimes that occurred this same black week, with three women and a child killed, is a wound in the heart of our democracy.” For this reason, Pedro Blanco called for unity so as not to take “a single step backwards” in the fight against machismo, a non-negotiable commitment for the Government.

The Constitution, “the best weapon we have”

To meet all these challenges that Spain has and continue to take care of democracy, the delegate appealed “to the best weapon we have”, the Constitution, “the one that we gave us 46 years ago and that promotes unity, tolerance and diversity above all, allowing us to reach this same year the milestone of making use of the Galician language in Congress”. He highlighted the need for “constitutional pedagogy”, which allows us to bring back agreement “like those that allowed the approval of our Magna Carta in 1978”.

Following this line, delegate recalled in his speech that this 2024 will go down in history as the year in which the first social reform of the constitutional text was approved, “and unanimously”, through the modification of Article 49. Pedro Blanco affirmed that this reform “showed them once again that this is a living text, which can and must be adapted to the needs and realities of the social framework in which it is applied”, allowing to dignify, on this occasion, the broad collective of society.

Itinerant celebration

In commemoration of the XLVI Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution was celebrated in the Pazo de Mariñán, in Bergondo, a building that is owned by the Diputación de A Coruña. With this transfer, the Delegation continues the decision taken in recent years to transfer this institutional act from its own thirst to other public bodies, as was already done in the municipalities of A Coruña and Vigo. This decision is a gesture with which the Delegation claims the Constitution as the heritage of all the citizens, all the institutions and the different levels of government that are included in it.