Spain’s progressive government has been dealt a costly legislative defeat as legislators rejected a package of emergency measures aimed at tackling the nation’s housing affordability crisis.
As protesters marched on parliament demanding help for renters, the setback sparked speculation that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez could consider bringing forward elections from next year.
He spoke at the end of a five-hour parliamentary debate, making a last-ditch appeal to legislators to vote for the “necessary” measures.
“What is behind these decrees is the desire to instil order and a sense of humanity in a market that if we do not rein it in will destroy our society,” Mr Sanchez told the other 349 members.
“Do the right thing, or history will judge you, and sooner than you think,” he concluded before each legislator voted by roll call.
Catalan separatist party Junts had earlier announced it would vote against both decrees, which doomed the measures when combined with the “No” from the centre-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”.
The first of the rejected decrees included a package of measures the government said would stop evictions of vulnerable people, make property 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 after the televised eviction of an 87-year-old woman last week in Madrid that sparked protests and a camp-in that has occupied the capital’s most important square.
Outside parliament, protesters held up homemade signs with images of vultures on them, denouncing the property speculators they blame for driving up prices.
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the past 10 years.
The elderly woman whose eviction sparked the protests, Maricarmen Abascal, has become a symbol in the fight for lower housing costs in a 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 gave in to immense public and political pressure this week and said that she can return to the apartment. Ms Abascal has been in hospital since being removed from her home on a stretcher, but her lawyer said she is happy to know she will be going home.
Share