Barcelona bank squatters take aim at property owner

Barcelona squatters angry at their eviction from a former bank have decided to target the owner of the property.

The one-time residents of the “Expropriated Bank” have announced that they are planning an escrache – an act of public shaming that originated in Argentina and became popular in Spain during the economic crisis, when activists began harassing politicians over their housing policies.

We’re going after him. He is responsible for the eviction of the Expropriated Bank

Protest organizers

The event will take place at 6pm on Thursday, according to messages posted through the social media, although the location will remain undisclosed until one hour earlier.

The target of the escrache is Manuel Bravo Solano, a businessman who purchased the premises from Catalunya Caixa for an amount that he puts at €500,000.

“We’re going after him. He is responsible for the eviction of the Expropriated Bank,” reads one of the messages. Activists have gone as far as to make posters with Bravo Solano’s face on it, and have distributed photographs of his family members.

The eviction has resulted in over a week of clashes between squatters and their sympathizers on one side, and the regional police on the other. City officials say the squatters refuse their offer to mediate in the conflict, and that parties should resort to neighborhood associations for help in finding a solution.

The former bank branch was taken over by squatters on October 22, 2011. In May 2013 the latter were presented with civil action by Catalunya Caixa aimed at getting them to vacate the premises.

In April 2013 the bank sold the property to Manuel Bravo Solano’s real estate company, Antartic Vintage. The new owner took the squatter issue to court and secured a favorable ruling, but the eviction never took place because in January 2015, the mayor at the time, Xavier Trias of the nationalist coalition CiU, agreed to pay Bravo a monthly rent of €5,500 so the squatters could remain. There were regional elections later that year and CiU did not want a repeat of the street violence that had followed the eviction of another squatter center, Can Vies.

But the new mayor, Ada Colau – herself an anti-eviction activist whose Mortgage Victims Platform (PAH) organized escraches in the past – ended the practice of using taxpayer money to pay the squatters’ rent. Antartic Vintage then asked for the eviction to be enforced.

On Tuesday, it transpired that the city had contemplated buying the property to return it to the squatter community, but ruled it out because “of the exorbitant price” that the owner was asking for it. EL PAÍS was unable to reach Bravo Solano for comment. Employees at Antartic Vintage who picked up the phone said they were feeling overwhelmed by all the controversy.

English version by Susana Urra.