Spain’s Parliament on Friday voted down both of the government’s emergency decrees to tackle the country’s housing affordability crisis, handing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a costly legislative defeat after weeks of street protests.
The two separate decrees were rejected in the 350-seat lower house, the Associated Press reported, after last-minute talks failed. The Catalan separatist party Junts, whose votes the minority coalition has relied on, announced on Thursday that it would not back the measures; the Spanish news outlet The Olive Press had forecast defeat by 172 votes to 171. Protesters marched on Parliament as the votes were taken, demanding help for renters.
The main decree would have extended protection against eviction for vulnerable Spaniards until 2030, regulated room rentals, imposed a new tax on seasonal rentals and banned what the government calls speculative property purchases by “vulture funds” until 2028, Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez told reporters at the presidential palace this week. The decree’s full text had yet to be released when she spoke, leaving unclear how such funds would be classified or how large the tax would be. The BBC described the package as including a temporary ban on evictions and an automatic rollover of rental contracts.
The votes capped days of pressure on the government that began on Sept. 23, when Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was evicted on a stretcher, according to Fortune, from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for 70 years. The eviction set off demonstrations in Madrid, Barcelona and other cities, and on Sept. 26 protesters set up a camp in the Puerta del Sol, a mobilization widely compared in Spain to the 15-M, or indignados, movement of 2011. Ms. Abascal has since been told she can return to her home, according to the AP.
Critics of the package argued the measures would tighten the housing market rather than relieve it, according to Al Jazeera. After both votes were lost, the government was left without the two main measures it had offered the protesters, Euronews reported.
Before the votes, Mr. Sánchez had a warning for the parties preparing to block the package. “They’ll be judged sooner than they think,” he said, according to Euronews.