Sánchez: "We will leave our skin on housing"

MadridLa Moncloa activates election pre-campaign mode. Pedro Sánchez appears this noon after the council of ministers that will approve, once again, the housing decrees that Congress struck down. It is the president personally who defends the Spanish government's strategy to push forward the measures the day after having announced the early elections in the State. A whole declaration of intent and a sign of how the PSOE is trying to bring the housing crisis to the center of the November 29th elections from minute one. "If parliament turns its back on the citizenry, the citizenry must choose a new parliament," he said, arguing that it is "imperative" to intervene in the housing market. "We will give it our all," he concluded.

The council of ministers has approved the decree-laws promoted following the Maricarmen case—about which he said "it cannot happen again"—taking advantage of the fact that with the dissolution of the Cortes, the so-called permanent deputation of the Spanish Parliament comes into operation. It is a parliamentary body, a kind of mini-Parliament, that operates when elections are called or there are holiday periods, and is currently made up of 69 deputies in a proportional representation of the chamber's groups. The key to understanding the Moncloa's move is that, unlike the plenary session, in this body the progressive majority will not depend on Junts to push forward the housing measures. The sum of Carles Puigdemont's party with the PP and Vox (34), furthermore, does not provide a majority for a veto.

What did the decrees include? On one hand, there is one that stops evictions for vulnerable families, among other measures, such as the extraordinary extension of leases for two years. And on the other, a second decree law in which indefinite rental contracts are established and compensation for the tenant if the landlord wants to end the contract early. According to the majorities of the permanent deputation, only the first one is expected to go forward, since the PNV has also opposed this second measure, which is a demand of the Tenants' Union. Sources from the Basque nationalists, in any case, will address the direction of their vote in the coming hours.

The reaction of Junts

Junts has not taken long to criticize the Spanish executive's move. "It is trying to approve the measures in a body where the social majority is not represented," the party's spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, criticized in statements to Catalunya Ràdio, although she admitted that the path chosen by Sánchez "is legal." "I think it is wrong [...] but he has decided to do it," she said. These words contrast with the voices of the Spanish right who accuse the Spanish president of committing fraud of law with the approval of the decrees in the permanent deputation. While awaiting possible challenges, it must be remembered that the Spanish government can indeed approve decree-laws with the Cortes dissolved. The only conditions are that they cannot regulate issues such as fundamental rights and that they must be done only for urgent matters.