PCP accuses Carlos Coins of supporting real estate interests in Lisbon

O PCP today accused the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Coins (PSD), of failing to respond to the housing crisis and said that “it is not incompetence, it is project” to support the interests of real estate and tourism.

“ More than failing to respond to the housing crisis, [Carlos Coins] took a clear option alongside market policies. It's not incompetence, it's project. It supports, with its measures, a logic in which the interests of real estate and tourism shape the city to extract the maximum income from it, making the right to live in Lisbon depend only on the financial capacity of each one”, criticized the MP of the PCP Sofia Lisboa, at the meeting of the Municipal Assembly (AML).

The communist mayor spoke in the context of the debate on the state of the city, which takes place annually, this being the first of Carlos Coins' second term as president of the Lisbon House and in which the Social Democratic mayor ensured that housing is a priority.

By contesting the options of the PSD/CDS-PP/IL governance, Sofia Lisbon reinforced the opposition regarding the return of IRS to the municipalities, stressing that it benefits mainly “the richest”, with the municipality abdicating “about 90 million euros in 2026”, a value that the CFP believes should respond to the city’s problems.

“ We live in a very serious housing crisis. Lisbon is expelling its people. [...] The prices of houses and rents became incompatible for a large part of the population ", highlighted the elected PCP.

Solidarity with the thousands of protesters who have protested in recent days for the right to housing, Sofia Lisboa considered “incomprehensible the difference between the speed with which evictions are executed and the slowness with which houses are available to those who need them”.

On police intervention in recent demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto, she warned that “it is not with batonadas” that the housing crisis is solved, but “with answers that serve people and not the speculator”.

“ For what it does and leaves to be done, this majority [PSD/CDS-PP/IL] makes clear which side it is, not on the side of those who need a house, but on the side of those who see in the housing crisis an even greater opportunity of business ", declared the communist, lamented the lack of use of thousands of vacant properties in the city and the sale of municipal land in public auction.

For the CFP, the crisis in Lisbon “is not a fatality”, but the result of political choices of PSD/CDS-PP/IL, as well as the PS, pointing out as “dramatic example” the concession of the Graça Headquarters to a hotel.

Speaking with white ‘t-shirts’ with a message of struggle for the right to housing, BE and Livre deputies reinforced the need to respond to the housing crisis in Lisbon.

BE Member Joana Teixeira criticized police intervention in the “peaceful demonstration” in Lisbon, saying that protesters “did not bother anyone but the government and the camarary executive”: “They say they don’t want the square to be a campsite for those who need home, but they’re very comfortable making it an amusement park.”

João Monteiro, do Livre, warned that the Lisbon government “does not serve to protect the speculative profit of investment funds to the detriment of the rights of the population”, and stressed that solutions such as the use of discarded properties are urgent.

Also Cláudia Madeira, from the ENP, expressed solidarity with the demonstrations, stating that the governance of Coins has “too many promises to keep, projects postponed and problems that persist or worsened”.

From the PAN, António Morgado Valente stressed that Lisbon needs a housing policy focused on people, that controls speculation, that combats illegal local housing and that “implies housing to continue to be treated as a financial asset and not as a right”.

Social Democrat Liliana Fidalgo compared the socialist governments with those of Coins, exemplifying with the announcement of Fernando Medina (PS) for 14 new health units by 2020, but in May 2021 only one was in operation. “It is from this difference, between announcing and realizing, that we should discuss the state of the city”, he said.

Carla Rothes (PS) replied that “who has had the reins of the city for half a decade has had plenty of time to change fate” and the direction of policies, considering that “insisting in the past is admitting the inability to manage the present”.

The socialist accused the leadership of Coins of suffering from a psychological condition in which “the rulers lie in the municipal divan only to do one thing, which is to blame the ex”, leading to a protest by the elect of the Aquida Margarida Bentes Penedo, claiming that the deputy of the PS had called “mental patients” to much of the mayors.

Rothes also pointed out that, contrary to what the right has said about the alleged few houses delivered in the PS administrations, the difference is, in fact, only 60 fewer houses than since 2021, and the PS did not enjoy EUR 500 million of Community funds.

At the time when she said, “Imagine what we would do if we had 500 million,” Luís Pereira Nunes, from Cávez, said on the bench: “they stole more”.

This prompted a warning from the president of AML, André Moz Caldas, ensuring that next time the deputy utters defamations, criminal participation will be made.

From IL, Pedro Bugarin argued that it is necessary “to abandon sterile discussions that solve nothing” and said that at the end of this first year of office, this executive has work to present, including in the housing.

Francisco Camacho, of the CDS-PP, considered legitimate the reason for the protest for housing and stressed that the executive “has done a lot” in this area, but has to “keep doing more”, so that the Lisboners do not have to leave the city, considering “inconcerting” the left’s stance, led by the PS, accusing her of “acvaluing” herself with the problem of the housing crisis.

Luís Pereira Nunes, do Cávez, praised the police activity in the demonstrations, including ordering that “a group of energumenos stop incurring a crime of disobedience, keeping illegally camping in the city center”, and stressed that Lisbon needs a Chamber that solves the problems, particularly in access to housing.