Tenant Union of Sol: a network with €3.7 million

The Tenant Union of Sol and a network with €3.7 million in public funds

Where does the money come from for the activism that has set up its tables in Puerta del Sol? A report by Isabel Durán in El Debate places the Tenant Union of Sol within a network that would have received 3.7 million euros from administrations governed by the PSOE. The figure changes the framework: from a neighbourhood movement to a structure sustained with other people's money. It is worth looking at who pays the bill.

The €3.7 million attributed to Socialist administrations

The core of the matter is a network of tenant groups that, according to that report, would have channelled 3.7 million euros from various Socialist administrations. The Tenant Union of Sol would be one more piece of that framework, not the entire framework. Therein lies the uncomfortable detail: it does not point to a loose collective, but to a branched structure with several entry points for funding. And the complete breakdown, item by item, is what no one shows openly.

The suspicion is not new. The thesis was already circulating that housing activism does not arise from nothing, but relies on cross-subsidies: one administration pays for the structure, another funds campaigns, and a third finances meetings. If that is confirmed, the story of the outraged tenant who organises alone falls apart.

Brussels, the European Action Coalition and the Soros trail

To the national trail is added the international one. According to reports circulating in parallel, the European Action Coalition, co-organiser of El Barrio together with the Tenant Union of Madrid, would receive funds from a programme co-financed by Brussels and from an international foundation. Another of the cited pieces is Idra, linked to the Open Society, which according to these versions would have set in motion much of the propaganda machinery of recent weeks. These are attributions that circulate and that, as of the date of this discussion, are not independently verified.

Some argue that talking about "chiringuitos" (cash-for-influence outfits) falls short: political activism today would be a multinational industry listed on major markets and infecting entire economic and technological areas. Money chooses the managers, and the managers execute.

The encampment, Ceuta and the electoral calendar

The backdrop is political. The material fuelling the controversy includes Carlos Cuesta's thesis: that the Government needed a big news bomb to cover up Ceuta, the 15 corruption cases surrounding it and the trial of Begoña Gómez, and that the script involved setting the streets on fire. Along the same lines, Santiago Abascal put the number of Spaniards threatened with eviction in Ceuta at 80,000 while attention was directed to Madrid. And as a contrast, the street scene of a protester who promised to take Ayuso to Soto del Real without knowing how many homes the Executive had promised and not built: 184,000.

The cracks in the narrative itself

Not everyone buys the version. On the other side of the scale is the argument that the union is funded only by members' dues, without subsidies, according to what an AI query about its sources of income returns. And a different current of opinion plays down the scandal: even accepting that an international network exists, the problem would not be the framework, but the very existence of public money destined to sustain activism.

In the end, the uncomfortable question is not whether they are paid, but how much of what we see in Sol is outrage and how much is payroll. With these ingredients, each person chooses their narrative, which is exactly what has been sold as press freedom for decades.