MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government looks set to lose two key votes it needs to ratify a package of emergency measures aimed at tackling the nation’s housing affordability crisis when Parliament convenes on Friday amid continued protests demanding that lawmakers act to help renters.
The Catalan separatist party Junts — essential for the approval of the two government decrees — said in a statement Friday morning that it will vote against them.
The measures
were intended to quell a public uproar following the televised eviction of an 87-year-old woman last week in Madrid that sparked protests and a camp-in that has occupied Madrid’s most important square ever since. Barring a surprise, the progressive coalition of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will suffer a costly legislative defeat that will likely fan the flames of the protests.
The elderly woman whose eviction sparked the protests, Maricarmen Abascal, has become a symbol for the fight for lower housing costs in the southern European country where many people are priced out of buying a home and are being squeezed by a small rental market.
The company that evicted her finally caved under immense public and political pressure this week and said that she can return to the apartment. Abascal is currently in a hospital since being removed from her home on a stretcher, but her lawyer said she is happy to know she will be going home.
Spain's 350-seat Parliament will start its session at 11 a.m.
The first decree is meant to stop evictions of vulnerable people like Abascal, make real estate speculation harder, impose tighter restrictions on short-term leases and provide tax incentives to encourage renting and the construction of housing.
The second decree is more controversial. It proposes to make leases automatically renew when they are set to expire, essentially making them indefinite. A property owner would have to pay a tenant 12 months of rent to break the contract.
