MadridThe Spanish government and Junts have engaged in an unprecedented standoff in Congress. After days of in extremis negotiation over the housing decree, the Junts members decided to strike down, with the votes of the PP and Vox, the regulations that suspended evictions and also indefinite rental contracts, which were also opposed by the PNV and Canary Coalition. To give significance to the moment, even the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, wanted to take the floor at the end of the session to ask them to reconsider. "History will judge you more harshly than you imagine," he declared. The Junts members, however, last night, after meeting with their executive committee, had already communicated to the PSOE that if they did not withdraw the decree law, they would vote against the regulations approved on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers. Now Sánchez has begun a period of reflection this weekend—he will open a round of contacts with his inner circle—to decide whether to call elections.
"You are more interested in the electoral campaign than in solving people's lives," Miriam Nogueras accused them from the podium. "We are not afraid of the blackmail of the extremes," she added, as in her opinion, Sánchez's measures "exacerbate the housing crisis." Former president Carles Puigdemont was also blunt on X. "Today we have seen one of the most obscene operations of political propaganda paid for with public money, at the service of an electoral campaign that will happen sooner or later, but it will happen. Go ahead," he said, asserting that the operation is to "save the PSOE".
The significance of the vote has been such that, even the left asked for the vote to be nominal: each deputy expressed their yes or their no out loud. "This overstepping is historic," Gabriel Rufián warned Junts. "I will strive for them to end up in political ostracism." Sumar deputy Tesh Sidi went further and asked them "how many people have to commit suicide in Catalonia" for them to vote in favor of the housing decrees being debated in Congress.
The Spanish government considered that the context of social protest, with the encampments in Puerta del Sol and Plaça Catalunya, gave them the opportunity to push forward a housing package with the plurinational majority, also including Junts, which had been stalled throughout the legislature. But the reality is that the vote ended like the previous ones, in which Junts, together with the PP and Vox, vetoed the government's housing measures. However, there is a difference from previous occasions: this time, various PSOE sources assure that Pedro Sánchez does not rule out calling early elections as a response, since it has been confirmed that he does not have the arithmetic to carry out the housing policies he considers necessary. Socialist sources consider that housing is the people's main concern and that the right "has made a mistake" with the direction of its vote. "They are not gauging the pulse of the citizenry well," they add from La Moncloa, while advising more caution when assessing whether Sánchez will call elections. In fact, they believe that now is the time to analyze what has happened and also to see the magnitude of the mobilizations planned for this Saturday in Madrid, Barcelona, and the rest of the state's capitals. "It is no longer a question of ideology, but of humanism," they conclude.
After two months with Ceuta at the center of public debate, in the last week the conversation has shifted toward social issues, which is where the Spanish government feels strong. That is why those in favor of early elections claim that they will not have a "better framework" between now and 2027 to be able to go to the polls. "Either with the people or with the vulture funds," socialist leaders repeated throughout the day, already in campaign mode. However, it is also true that elections would completely alter the plans Sánchez had until now. The Spanish president has always placed the elections in 2027 and they expected that in this final stretch of the legislature the amnesty would be applied and that issues such as the new financing or the forgiveness of the FLA debt could also be approved.
In fact, not the entire PSOE actually believes that the best move is to call for elections –after Ceuta the socialists had suffered a decline–. To the left of the socialists, Sumar, Podemos, among others, are not yet articulated. Would Sánchez be capable of gathering the discontent regarding housing? Channeling the Puerta del Sol protests electorally? That is the question a leader of the left was asking at the doors of Congress, who expressed skepticism about the PSOE's ability to also mobilize the more left-wing factions of the electorate without a Sumar and Podemos aligned.
Pressure on Junts
During the debate, Junts took all the criticism from the left-wing parties and also from the government. "Today they will be judged by their votes," insisted Isabel Rodríguez during the debate to Junts, who were listening to her attentively from their benches. "It is the moment of truth –she continued in a grave tone–, it is the time to deliver for the Spanish and the Catalans." The Minister of Housing defended that in the first decree-law she was presenting this Friday in the chamber, there was "90%" of the measures that Junts had proposed and she asked them until the very end to rethink their vote or at least abstain. In fact, she offered them to process the measures later as a bill in order to include or change what they were not happy with.
What did Junts answer them? Despite Rodríguez's offer, the proposal that Junts put on the table was for the Spanish government to withdraw the regulation and sit down to negotiate "behind closed doors" again with them. Sources from Miriam Nogueras's group claim that they had not validated the latest version of the text approved by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday and are suspicious of how the suspension of evictions, the extraordinary extension of rent contracts, or the veto on the purchase of apartments by vulture funds was regulated.
Despite the widespread criticism, several Junts leaders are satisfied with the decision taken. "We will see each other at the polls," assures one source, while others congratulate themselves for having recovered the connection with the Catalan business community after the 'Procés', where the post-convergent space turned more towards the left. "Now we have a clear position," states another. In this sense, they interpret that if there are general elections, they will be the only ones to represent, they believe, an economic model different from that of the "far left," which they attribute to the housing decrees of Sumar and Podemos –although in one of them, which Junts had also negotiated, the PNB and Coalición Canaria joined in–. The Basque nationalists have expressed a "critical yes out of responsibility," but have pointed out that despite protecting the "most vulnerable," the measures would hinder the increase in the housing supply.
Feijóo asks Sánchez to set a date now
The PP and Vox have lashed out at the Spanish government and challenged it to call early elections. "Do you think you have the alibi? Then set a date. Dissolve the courts, call elections and let the Spanish people speak," demanded PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo. "Nobody thinks about Pedro Sánchez until 2031 anymore, but the fact is nobody wants Pedro Sánchez for Christmas," he reaffirmed. It will be the Spanish president who, in the coming days, will decide whether to call the people to the polls.
Demonstration at the Junts headquarters in Barcelona
Demonstration against Junts in Barcelona
The demonstration called by the Tenants' Union in front of the Junts headquarters to protest against Carles Puigdemont's party's rejection of the Spanish government's housing decree was marked by indignation. The sixty or so people who attended, amidst the rain, hurled insults at the Junts members, and the spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, Carme Arcarazo, delivered the most forceful message: "If it weren't for Junts, who caused the anti-eviction moratorium to fail in February, Olga would be alive today," referring to the recent suicide in Catalonia following an eviction. She raised the tone even further: "Let them be exposed as being against the people. They have voted in favor of suicides," she snapped. The warning was that "these people must pay dearly for this," referring to the Junts members. For this reason, they even addressed former president Carles Puigdemont, with shouts that he should "stay in Brussels." Arcarazo asked herself, "with what face will President Puigdemont return home after having kicked out hundreds of thousands of people?" Several union representatives stressed that Junts is "bought" by the real estate lobby, while the Tenants' Union warned that the country is heading towards a "general strike." One protester, Cati, a pensioner who does own a house, predicted that "this is the grave of Junts" and advocates for "a popular front" led by Pedro Sánchez. Other protesters labeled Junts as "traitors" and even "fascists." "Out of the governments," demanded Juanjo Hurtado, of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), referring to the fact that Junts should not have any influence in any executive –reports Roger Palós.