What changed
Spain’s Congress rejected two government measures aimed at easing the housing crisis, defeating Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government by 178 votes to 172 and 184 to 166.
The measures would have suspended evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, extended some rental leases, raised taxes on tourist apartments, restricted purchases by funds labelled “vulture funds” and introduced automatic rental-contract renewals. The votes followed protests over the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her Madrid flat after a sharp rent increase.
Why it matters
Sánchez now faces a political problem that is also painfully physical: people are sleeping in tents and occupying squares while parliament has rejected the government’s proposed response. Abascal has since returned to her flat on a low rent after protests and negotiations with its owner, Urbagestión. But that individual resolution has not quieted the wider movement.
The defeat exposes how little room Sánchez has to govern. His Socialist-led coalition lacks a congressional majority and depended on smaller nationalist parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country. The conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox opposed both decrees.
The immediate uncertainty is whether Sánchez will dissolve parliament and call an early election, which was otherwise due next summer. If he does, housing policy could become the test of whether public anger can be converted into votes. If he does not, replacement measures will still need support from parties that have just demonstrated they can block his plans.
The Sindicato de Inquilinas, which coordinated the protests, says it is moving its campaign from a central Madrid tent to neighbourhoods, residential blocks and homes where rent increases and expulsions are taking place. That shifts the pressure from one visible protest site to the places where the housing dispute is lived every day.
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