Spanish Government Loses Key Votes on Housing Affordability Measures

MADRID: Spain's government lost two key votes to ratify a package of emergency measures aimed at tackling the nation's housing affordability crisis when lawmakers convened on Friday, while protesters marched on the Parliament demanding help for renters. The Catalan separatist party Junts carried out its announcement made hours before that it would vote against both decrees. That doomed the measures when combined with the "No" from the center-right Popular Party and far-right Vox. The vote was loudly jeered by protesters who had gathered nearby. The rejected decree included a package of measures the government said would stop evictions of vulnerable people, make real estate speculation harder and provide tax incentives to encourage renting, among others. The parliament is also expected to shoot down a second decree that would make residential leases automatically renew and oblige an owner who wants to break a contract to compensate a tenant with a year's rent. The Popular Party, Vox, Junts and two other smaller parties have said they won't back it. The legislative defeat sparked speculation in Spanish media that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez could consider bringing forward elections from next year. Sánchez didn't speak when he arrived at the chamber in downtown Madrid. His office did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press regarding a possible snap election. Sanchez spoke at the end of a five-hour debate, making a last-gasp appeal to lawmakers to vote the measures that he called "necessary." "What is behind these decrees is the desire to instill order and a sense of humanity in a market that if we do not rein it in will destroy our society," Sánchez told the other 349 members. "Do the right thing, or history will judge you, and sooner than you think," Sánchez concluded before each lawmaker voted by roll call.