Spain’s government dealt blow after parliament rejects housing measures. Early election speculated

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s progressive government was dealt a costly legislative defeat on Friday when lawmakers rejected a package of emergency measures aimed at tackling the nation’s housing affordability crisis, as protesters gathered outside Parliament demanding help for renters.

The setback sparked speculation in Spanish media that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez could consider bringing forward elections from next year. His office did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press regarding a possible snap election.

Sánchez spoke at the end of a five-hour parliamentary debate, making a last-gasp appeal to lawmakers to vote for the measures that he called “necessary.”

“What is behind these decrees is the desire to instill order and a sense of humanity in a market that if we do not rein it in will destroy our society,” Sánchez told the other 349 members.

“Do the right thing, or history will judge you, and sooner than you think,” Sánchez concluded before each lawmaker voted by roll call.

His plea fell on deaf ears. The Catalan separatist party Junts carried out its announcement made hours before that it would vote against both decrees. That doomed the measures when combined with the “No” from the center-right Popular Party and far-right Vox.

The votes were loudly jeered by protesters who had gathered nearby, while people seated in the public tribune of the chamber shouted “Vulture funds govern the congress!”

Oriol Bartomeus, a professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said that uncertainty now overhangs Spanish politics because Sánchez has good reasons to both call elections in two months time, as well as to hang on until next year.

Sánchez, while a popular progressive leader internationally, has been surrounded by a series of legal cases against his Socialist party and even his family, which all deny any wrongdoing. His government has also been harshly criticized for a migration crisis in Ceuta.

“It is clear that the issue of housing is more favorable than corruption,” Bartomeus told the AP. “But if he calls elections now, he has to wait 54 days to hold them, and in that time absolutely anything can happen.”

The decrees followed public uproar over the eviction of an elderly woman

The first of the rejected decrees included a package of measures the government said would stop evictions of vulnerable people, make real estate speculation harder and provide tax incentives to encourage renting. The second decree was intended to make residential leases automatically renewable by tenants.

The main protest group, the renters association Sindicato de Inquilinas, said it was calling for more protests on Saturday and pushing for a general strike.

The government decrees were intended to quell a public uproar following the televised eviction of an 87-year-old woman last week in Madrid that sparked protests and a camp-in that has occupied Madrid’s most important square ever since.

Outside the parliament, protesters held up homemade signs with images of vultures on them, denouncing the real estate speculators they blame for driving up prices.

Protester Carla Cremonte, a 34-year-old office worker, lamented that the right-wing parties had united to “vote against the interests of the majority of people who are here, of the workers of Spain.”

“I don’t know what might happen, whether elections will be called, but in the streets we will continue fighting and the atmosphere is one of a general strike,” she said.

The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the past 10 years. The average price per square meter has risen from 8.20 euros in 2016 to 15.1 euros ($17.15) this year, according to the real estate website Idealista.

The elderly woman whose eviction sparked the protests, Maricarmen Abascal, has become a symbol for the fight for lower housing costs in the southern European country, where many people are priced out of buying a home and are being squeezed by a small rental market.

The company that evicted her finally caved under immense public and political pressure this week and said that she can return to the apartment. Abascal is currently in a hospital since being removed from her home on a stretcher, but her lawyer said she is happy to know she will be going home.

It is unclear where the government will go from here. It could work on fresh legislation — unless, of course, Sánchez pulls the trigger on an election.

Catalan separatists scuttle housing decrees

Junts is one of a group of small parties that Sánchez needed to woo when he formed a new government in 2023. It has proven to be a prickly political partner ever since. Its leader, the separatist Carles Puigdemont, has resided in Belgium since fleeing Spain after leading a failed bid to make northeastern Catalonia an independent nation in 2017.

Spain’s Housing Minister, Isabel Rodríguez, appealed to Junts from the lectern, saying that her ministry had “incorporated 90% of your proposals. Vote for the decrees or at least abstain.”

But Míriam Nogueras of Junts said that the decrees would only lead to owners removing their properties from the rental market, and thus driving up prices even further.

“These decrees still allow speculators to buy property and to evict people,” Nogueras said.

Junts urged the government to negotiate amendments. The government refused.

“This is not a failure of all of us,” Juan Bravo of the Popular Party told Rodríguez. “This is your failure and that of Sánchez’s entire government.”

The center-right Basque party and the tiny Coalición Canaria, whose support the government also needed, also voted against the second decree after backing the first one. They both criticized the government for rushing to act via decree instead of crafting legislation with other parties.

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Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.