The scenario that Pedro Sánchez wanted to avoid has materialized at the doors of the voting on the two housing decrees. Junts has decided to vote against both texts, closing the possibility of an abstention from its seven deputies that would allow the Government to save at least the main package of measures. The parliamentary defeat thus becomes the scenario the Executive is heading towards if there is no last-minute change in the arithmetic of the Chamber.
What happens this Friday will have a dimension that goes beyond housing. A defeat would leave the Government facing new evidence of the fragility of the investiture majority and would bring back to the forefront the question that has accompanied the legislature for months: how much time is the president willing to continue without a stable majority to push forward his agenda.
The decision of Junts also introduces an element that until now belonged to the realm of hypothesis: the electoral calendar already allows for the polls to be held at the end of November. And the date of Sunday, November 29 fits precisely into the machinery of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG).
Junts closes the door to the decrees
The National Executive of Junts has agreed that its seven deputies reject the two royal decree laws on housing if the Government does not previously withdraw the texts. The Executive has decided to keep them on the agenda and submit them to a vote, despite the ultimatum from Carles Puigdemont's party.
The decision is particularly relevant for the first of the decrees, for which the Government had tried to build a parliamentary majority by the minimum. Junts' rejection eliminates that route and leaves the Executive facing a vote with a predictably adverse result. The second text arrives even more compromised, after other groups have also announced their rejection.
Sánchez has also raised the political component of the vote. After learning of Junts' decision, the president has publicly urged PP, Vox, and the independentist formation to position themselves on the decrees, while the Government maintains that it will not withdraw the texts.
An eventual defeat does not legally cause the fall of the Government. Sánchez can continue in La Moncloa even if Congress rejects the decrees, negotiate each initiative separately, and keep the legislature open. An adverse vote does not equate to a vote of confidence nor does it automatically trigger an electoral process. The Constitution establishes that the president can propose the dissolution of the Cortes, after deliberation by the Council of Ministers and under his exclusive responsibility. The dissolution is decreed by the King and the decree itself sets the date of the elections.
The question, therefore, is not whether a parliamentary defeat forces Sánchez to call elections. It does not. The question is whether the president decides to use that power and when.
The clock of the LOREG opens the door to 29-N
Here the precision of the electoral calendar comes into play.
Article 42 of the LOREG establishes that, when the president makes use of his power of early dissolution, the call decree is published the day after its issuance and comes into effect on the same day of its publication. Elections must be held between the fifty-fourth and sixtieth day following the call.
This means that it is not necessary for Sánchez to wait until October 6 to call elections on November 29. October 6 would be the final limit of the margin for November 29 to be the 54th day after the call.
The arithmetic is as follows:
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Publication of the decree on October 1: 59 days until 29-N.
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Publication on October 2: 58 days.
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Publication on October 3: 57 days.
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Publication on October 4: 56 days.
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Publication on October 5: 55 days.
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Publication on October 6: 54 days.
Therefore, November 29 is legally compatible with any call published between October 1 and October 6. October 6 is not a unique and mandatory date, but the last day of that margin to keep November 29 as an electoral day.
Friday 2, Saturday 3 or Monday 5: what would happen
The calendar thus acquires a distinct political dimension depending on the moment Sánchez wants to make his decision public. If the president were to announce the advance this Friday, October 2, after the voting on the housing decrees, he would still have room to legally formalize the decision. The political announcement and the publication of the decree do not have to occur at the same moment. The Constitution requires prior deliberation by the Council of Ministers for the president to propose the dissolution.
If the decision were communicated on Saturday, October 3, the calendar would still be compatible with November 29 as long as the decree was issued and published within the corresponding legal margin. And if Sánchez were to wait until Monday, October 5, he could also take the ballots to November 29. In that case, the decree could be issued on Monday and published on Tuesday, October 6. Precisely that publication on October 6 would place November 29 on the 54th day after the call.
The most recent precedent also demonstrates that the machinery can be activated quickly. In 2023, Sánchez proposed the dissolution of the Cortes after the regional and municipal elections on May 28; Royal Decree 400/2023 was issued on May 29 and published in the BOE on the 30th, calling for the general elections on July 23.
From the housing defeat to the electoral campaign
If the decree were published on October 6, the electoral calendar would begin to unfold immediately.
The parties would have ten days from the call to communicate coalition agreements. The candidacies for the general elections would subsequently be presented within the deadlines established by the LOREG, and their proclamation would occur before the start of the campaign. The next relevant milestone would be the campaign. Article 51 of the LOREG establishes that it begins on the thirty-eighth day after the call, lasts fifteen days, and concludes at zero hours on the day before the vote.
With a call published on October 6, the campaign would start on November 13 and would last until zero hours on Saturday the 28th. Saturday would remain as the day before the vote, and on Sunday November 29, voters would go to the polls. The calendar would thus turn a parliamentary defeat that occurred on October 2 into the starting point of an electoral process that would culminate just eight weeks later.
The decision that remains in Sánchez's hands
The defeat of the housing decrees, by itself, does not determine the end of the legislature. The Government can continue governing, present new initiatives, and seek different majorities for each vote. But the rejection by Junts modifies the political scenario in which Sánchez must make that decision. The Executive had managed to incorporate Podemos into the block favorable to the decrees and, despite this, Junts' refusal threatens to bring down the two regulations.
Housing thus becomes the episode that can mark a before and after in the legislature. The question is no longer solely whether the Government manages to validate two decrees, but what reading Moncloa makes of a possible defeat and whether it considers that there is still room to maintain a sufficient parliamentary majority.
From a legal point of view, the clock is already ticking: to vote on November 29, the call would have to be published in the BOE between October 1 and 6. This leaves open the three political windows that now appear on the table: an immediate decision after the vote this Friday, an announcement over the weekend, or a formalization on Monday. The electoral calendar, on the other hand, does not allow for too many interpretations. If Sánchez decides to dissolve the Cortes, November 29 is within the window allowed by the LOREG and the last day to publish the decree that would maintain that date would be October 6. From there, the next move would no longer be in the hands of the electoral calculator and would pass to the political decision-making of the president.