MADRID – Spain’s minority socialist government led by Pedro Sánchez suffered a major parliamentary defeat Friday, when Congress voted down two emergency decree laws crafted to address the country’s escalating affordable housing crisis. The outcome has amplified widespread speculation that Sánchez will be forced to call an early general election, months ahead of the scheduled vote next summer.
The crisis that forced the government’s hand began last week, when 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from her long-term central Madrid apartment after being unable to absorb a steep rent hike imposed by property owner Urbagestión. Mass public outrage over the eviction quickly spread nationwide, with thousands of protesters mobilizing to demand systemic reform of Spain’s unregulated rental market, where prices have surged to unaffordable levels for millions of working and low-income households in recent years. Under intense public pressure, Urbagestión later reversed course and agreed to allow Abascal to return to her home at a reduced rate, but the protest movement only gained momentum, spreading to city squares across the country and organizers called for a national strike over housing affordability.
In a rushed response to the growing social backlash, Sánchez’s left-wing coalition government pushed through two executive decrees packed with tenant protection measures, which required parliamentary approval to remain in force. The first decree included sweeping provisions: a moratorium on evictions for vulnerable renters through 2030, a two-year extension for rental leases set to expire before 2028, higher taxes on short-term tourist apartments, and new restrictions on residential property purchases by large investment firms the government labels “vulture funds.” The second, more contentious decree proposed automatic renewal of existing rental contracts, a core demand of tenant activists and left-wing organizers.
With the conservative People’s Party (PP) and far-right Vox already committed to voting against both measures, Sánchez’s minority government relied on the support of small regional nationalist parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country to pass the reforms. However, centre-right pro-independence party Together for Catalonia (JxCat) announced it would oppose the decrees in the lead-up to the vote, dooming the government’s proposals to defeat. The final vote tallies reflected the narrow divide: the first decree was rejected 178 to 172, while the second failed by a wider margin of 184 to 166.
In a last-ditch emotional appeal moments before the vote, Sánchez pleaded with undecided lawmakers to back the measures, framing the reform as a moral and existential issue for Spanish society. “I don’t ask you, I beg you to be brave and consistent,” he said. “Because they are not just ambitious measures, they are necessary. We have to put order and humanity into this market, because if we don’t, it will bring down our society.” Social Affairs Minister Pablo Bustinduy, representing junior coalition partner Sumar, framed the vote as a choice between working-class Spaniards and wealthy foreign interests. “Today is about defending an international oligarchy which is extracting rent from salaries earned with the effort of working classes of this country,” he argued. “Voting against these decrees today means defending the interests of this oligarchy and turning your back on your own people.”
Critics of the decrees pushed back on both policy and procedural grounds. JxCat lawmaker Miriam Nogueras argued the reforms had been hastily drafted and would ultimately backfire, saying “these two decrees will allow [vulture] funds to keep buying, keep speculating and evictions to keep happening… they will provoke the opposite effect of what they aim to achieve.” The opposition PP echoed the criticism, arguing that government intervention in the rental market would discourage private homeowners from listing properties for rent, further reducing supply and driving up prices. “Housing doesn’t get cheaper with decrees, it gets cheaper with more homes,” said PP representative Juan Bravo.
As the vote unfolded inside Congress, hundreds of housing activists gathered outside the building, and angry demonstrations broke out after the results were announced. Protesters chanted “shame on you” and “your profits, our misery” to condemn the rejection of the reforms. The leading activist group coordinating the national movement, the Sindicato de Inquilinas (Tenants’ Union), announced during the congressional debate that it would end its week-long tent encampment in central Madrid to refocus its efforts on neighborhood organizing. “We will take the struggle to all the neighbourhoods, residential blocks and homes of Madrid, wherever there are rental increases, expulsions and abuses each day, and turn the energy of the last few days into a permanent organisation,” the group said. It has already scheduled a new series of mass marches for this weekend and continues to call for a national general strike over the housing crisis.
Friday’s defeat highlights the fragility of Sánchez’s minority government, which has already been weakened by a series of ongoing scandals and judicial investigations affecting the Socialist Party and its close allies. Political analysts now widely expect Sánchez to call a snap general election, rather than continue to govern without a working majority, more than eight months before the scheduled election in summer 2026.