The Spanish government is heading for another defeat with the social safety net.

MadridThe social safety net decree, which will be voted on in Congress this Thursday, hangs by a thread. In fact, at this point, nothing suggests it will pass, because the Spanish government doesn't have enough votes secured. Junts has stated it will vote against it, or at least that's what the party's spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, indicated during Wednesday's question time with the Spanish government. "We will vote no," Nogueras affirmed, criticizing Pedro Sánchez for including the anti-eviction measure in the decree again. "Social safety net yes, squatting no," Nogueras said. Thus, Pedro Sánchez's government is once again headed for another defeat for the package of measures. Government sources are avoiding commenting on this scenario and are simply saying they are waiting for Thursday's vote.

When the decree first reached the Spanish lower house, it failed due to the votes against it from the PP, Vox, and Junts. The Junts party had already warned that they would vote the same way again if the text maintained the ban on certain evictions affecting vulnerable families, a measure in effect since the COVID-19 pandemic and which Carles Puigdemont's party has accepted on other occasions. In fact, in this second attempt, the Spanish government modified part of the measure: after an agreement with the PNV, small property owners are now excluded. On Wednesday afternoon, housing rights movements continued to pressure Junts, as well as Pedro Sánchez's government, to find a solution. According to social organizations, some 70,000 families depend on this ban.

"What does [the anti-eviction measure] have to do with squatting? [...] Why are you copying the rhetoric of the right and the far right?" Sánchez rebuked Nogueras. In addition to this ban, the social safety net includes the electricity and heating social bonus, tax breaks for home renovations and an increase in the minimum living income (IMV), and a deduction in personal income tax for the purchase of an electric vehicle, among other things. "You have to decide if you stand with those who open their businesses or with those who break down doors," Nogueras responded to Sánchez, whom she criticized for being more concerned with polls than with the people on the streets. Junts also lamented that he is "Spanishizing" Catalan roads after prioritizing Spanish on some public signs due to the new application of the regulations, as Junts denounced.

ERC enters the fray

But ERC also made its presence felt in Nogueras's questioning of Sánchez. In fact, Junts and the Republicans often engage in a kind of personal confrontation in Congress. The Junts spokesperson used her time to expose ERC, asserting that Pedro Sánchez's government has failed to deliver on "anything" it promised them. "It seems our ERC colleagues have finally realized that [the PSOE] can't be trusted. [...] They haven't received the special funding, nor the personal income tax cuts promised by Salvador Illa, nor the transfer of the Rodalies commuter rail network, nor anything else they've been promised over the last eight years. They deceive everyone, even their most unconditional partners," Nogueras declared.

Once he had finished reviewing the "breaches," Sánchez came to the defense of the Republicans, reminding Nogueras that the question period was for the Spanish government, not for ERC: "I don't know if Mr. [Gabriel] Rufián wants to answer the part that corresponds to Esquerra Republicana." La Moncloa, the Catalan government, and the Republicans are currently negotiating how to unblock Catalonia's ability to collect and manage personal income tax, as Illa promised the Republicans within the framework of the investiture agreement. In fact, reaching a consensus on this could be key to the approval of the Catalan budget, which the Generalitat intends to present this Friday. Meanwhile, ERC intends to register a bill in Congress to create a consortium to control state investments in Catalonia. "This government delivers, with Catalonia and with the parliamentary groups," Sánchez said during the question period.