Spanish Congress rejects both housing decrees, 178-172 and 184-166

Spain's Congress rejected both government housing decrees on Friday, leaving Pedro Sanchez without the tenant measures he had tied to the eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid. The first decree fell by 178 votes to 172. The second fell by 184 to 166. Hundreds of people outside the chamber chanted "shame on you" and "your profits, our misery" after the numbers were read.

The decrees were the government's answer to protests that followed the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, also referred to in some reports as Maria del Carmen Abascal, from the home she had lived in for 70 years. Her eviction was later reversed. Protesters have stayed camped in Puerta del Sol anyway. One decree would have suspended evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030. The package also included tax breaks for landlords who cut rents, a temporary ban on purchases by investment funds, and taxes and rules on short-term tourist lets. Decree-laws need a congressional vote to remain in force. Friday's votes removed them.

Junts, the Catalan party that sometimes votes with the Socialists, pulled its support late on Thursday. It said the text should be withdrawn and rewritten because, as written, it would reduce the supply of rental housing and raise prices. Without those votes Sanchez does not have a majority. The gap on the first decree was six votes. On the second it was 18. A party that leaves on the eve of a vote can decide both.

The loss increases talk of an early election. The next general election is not due until summer. Sources told Spanish media the cabinet would use the weekend to decide whether to dissolve parliament. Sanchez made a last appeal to allies before the defeat. It did not move Junts. A minority government that cannot pass the bill it wrote for the week's largest street protest is in a weaker position on every other vote it still needs.

The Abascal case is the trigger, not the whole housing argument. Spain's rental protests predate her eviction. What changed in the last month is that a single removal, of a woman of 87, gave the protests a person and a square. The reversal of her eviction did not empty Puerta del Sol. The decrees were an attempt to turn that camp into a law before the parliamentary arithmetic ran out. The arithmetic ran out on Friday.

Junts' stated reason is supply. A ban on fund purchases and a freeze on evictions, the party said, would take homes off the rental market and push rents up. The government's stated reason is the opposite: without a freeze and a tax break for cheaper rents, tenants keep losing homes. Congress did not settle that argument. It settled the vote. Both decrees are gone. Landlords and funds are under the rules that existed before the decrees. Tenants are too.

The weekend decision in the cabinet is the next concrete step. Dissolving parliament would put the housing fight into a campaign. Keeping parliament would require a new text that Junts, or some other party outside the coalition, will vote for. The six-vote margin on the first decree shows how little room there is. A rewritten bill that loses Junts again fails. A rewritten bill that drops the eviction freeze may lose the parties to Sanchez's left. That is the choice the numbers from Friday leave him.