Vox in Madrid Part 2 with José Antonio Fúster
Our breakdown of an exclusive English interview with National Spokesman for Vox José Antonio Fúster and Member of Regional Assembly for Madrid on housing, fighting PP and Spain´s generational gap. Part 1 can be found here.
“Tourism is a strength”
One comment from Santiago Abascal stood out at EuropaViva25 with the Vox leader lamenting the fact that Spanish young people have to share fridges with immigrants if they want to move out of their family home. It was a comment greeted with applause but a certain amount of uncomfortable shuffling. Conceeding that immigration increases demand , is José not concerned about the 15,000 illegal tourists flats rented out via Airbnb and other platforms, denying Spanish youngsters a chance to move out? Is it not also true that to be a ´patriotic´party, Vox need to discriminate against tourist lets (33:00)?
“In Spain we have a constitution and heritage that says private property is sacred. So we cannot tell people what to do with their properties. You are pointing the finger. Really we have every year 120,000 more people in Madrid. Do you think 9,000 houses has a great impact?” This would be a fair statement if we hadn´t already stated that immigration is an issue, so we pressed again . If you take 10,000 of those back, that´s 30,000 places. When it´s immigrants Vox can discriminate but why the reticence to speak out against an American multinational like Airbnb? “Have you seen around Madrid, we have plenty of free space. We can build new cities . Why are we going to intervene in private property until we have done that? ” José responds. “Madrid has never been an industrial city. Tourism is a strength.”
Ayuso is “a master of disguise.” – José Antonio Fúster on Vox in Madrid vs PP
Turning away from housing and onto José´s other hat of being a member in the Madrid Regional assembly, Vox have found it notoriously difficult to crack the nut of Ayuso in Madrid. Despite Vox nationally climbing to up to 17-18% in some polls, the last election had Vox on 7% to the Ayuso led PP´s 47. Recent polls have seen little change so why does José think Vox continue to underperform in Madrid?
“In Madrid we are far below our potential because in Madrid we a facing a master of disguise who has a spectactular ability to play the victim.” José wasn´t letting PSOE off in his response though either. “I think Sanchez made an enormous mistake of pointing to Ayuso in the Covid pandemia to make her a kind of ground zero. The average Madrileno reacted by closing ranks with a women that is only smoke.”
“Build them yourself!”
“From time to time PP try to disguise as Vox and Ayuso is a master. She doesn´t build housing. We were talking about housing. Ayuso complains about the Government not building any housing well build them yourself! She opens centres for illegal immigrants. And we know that. Our main quest is to point at her and say, she´s a fraud.”
“Now the young generation has the right to say to the elders: What are you going to do?”
So finally, with Vox enjoying success in the younger demographics perhaps they are best placed to challenge a system where the first highest spending by the state is on pensions and the third highest is debt to pay for them. Over 50% of Spanish pensioners own two homes whilst Spanish people between 23-28 have seen homeownership drop from over 60% in 2002 to less than 30% today. Is this not fundamentally immoral and if Spain´s wants to avoid its demographic winter, does José not think Spain should start discriminating against older people in favour of younger cohorts ?
“It´s a fair question. It´s a difficult question. So we have to change the system” Jose responds but again he was light on what that would look like in practice. To be fair, every European and Western nation is facing this crisis and the answer so far has been to dope itself on the pyramid scheme of immigration. Still, Spanish people are turning their own countrymen into tenants and asking younger people to pay for their unearned pensions. How is that moral?
“Listen, we are not a protestant country. We are a catholic country and the mantra is family, family , family. So you need to respect the elders, you cannot blame them, you need to blame the politicians. But now the younger generations have the right to say to the elders ´what are you going to do for me?´”
All photos are the property of Vox and used with their permission. The full interview is available below.