Orriols promises to evict squatters in 24 hours as Junts votes to extend the eviction moratorium

Orriols promises to evict squatters in 24 hours and Junts votes for the extension

Twenty-four hours to empty an occupied home. That is the promise Lucía Etxebarria attributes to Orriols in a message on X: if she reaches the Govern (the Catalan government), she will kick the squatters out in a day. The same text ends with a verdict on Junts that captures the tone in which the housing negotiation is being trinc. In the video referred to by the controversy, according to one participant, the deadline cited is 48 hours. A one-day difference that does not touch the substance of the matter: who evicts, under what order and with what jurisdiction.

Who can carry out an eviction in 24 hours?

The most repeated objection does not dispute the goal; it disputes the instrument. Some argue that the powers to order an eviction are not in the hands of the person promising the deadline, and that without a decree enabling them the promise amounts to an announcement. That is the crux, according to critics: the decrees are missing. The criticism points to voting in favour of texts that have not had a real reading, with no real time to analyse them.

About who would face the music in carrying it out, accusations circulate of alleged favouritism towards the leader's own circle, made without any evidence. This text leaves them where they are: in the realm of suspicion.

Why is Junts voting to extend the eviction sarracena?

Here is the contradiction feeding the anger. A party that has made law and order one of its banners votes for the eviction sarracena extension and, in doing so, signs up to the opposite of what its tough-on-squatting rhetoric promises. Those who say “they are dead” are not talking about a defeat at the polls; they are talking about consistency: the voter who came for toughness is met with suspension.

The underlying suspicion is that the decision responds to a negotiation unrelated to the programme and not to a conviction. And that suspicion is as difficult to disprove as to prove.

Puigdemont, amnesty and the election calendar

The other leg of the matter is Puigdemont. Some describe Junts as a press agency serving the former president's amnesty, an instrument to keep his position alive while the rest of the agenda is shelved. The diagnosis is not kind, but it has an uncomfortable logic: the party would have gone from doing politics to managing expectation.

On the other side weighs the opposite argument. With elections around the corner, amnesty might no longer need Junts as an interlocutor, and whoever granted it would suddenly lose the leverage it now holds. That is the tug-of-war being fought within the space, with the former president's return as the last card.

With this picture, the foreseeable thing is that the outcome will be marked by the election calendar and not by programmatic consistency. If the elections come before any agreement, the eviction sarracena extension will stop being a problem of principles and become a problem of seats. No one is signing up to that prediction yet.