The minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, has urged the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to change his stance on the housing decree and to support the extension of rent controls in Congress, emphasizing that the initiative has broad social support and that the 'popular' party already backed a similar measure in the past.
That appeal has been sent to him through a letter sent directly to Feijóo, which the minister himself has shared on his "Bluesky" social network profile. In the letter, he details various reasons for the PP to vote in favor of extending rental contracts, given the popular leader's refusal to "even sit down to debate" the content of the decree.
In a press conference in one of the corridors of Congress, Bustinduy did not specify if he had sent a letter in similar terms to Junts, a party that has frozen its relations with Sumar after criticism from second vice-president Yolanda Díaz, who described them as "racist" and "classist".
Warning to PP and Junts: the rejection will "turn against them"
Despite this, the minister has remarked that the Government and Sumar will make "all necessary efforts" of negotiation "until the last second and by land, sea, and air" to ensure that tenants can benefit from the extension of their contracts.
He also stressed that there is not "a single solid argument" to overturn the decree beyond "no for the sake of no to everything" and has warned that those who choose to vote against it "are not calibrating the social outcry" around the housing problem and that this decision "will turn against them".
In his letter, Bustinduy explains to Feijóo that he has opted for this written route after not being able to convey Sumar's position on the decree "verbally," and with the aim that the PP can weigh its stance before Tuesday's vote, when Congress will have to decide on the validation of the extension of rents.
The minister details that the measure affects more than 2.5 million people, of different ideologies, with contracts expiring between 2026 and 2027 and who could face "sudden increases of up to 50%" in their rents. According to his calculations, the extension would allow savings of up to 2,000 euros per year per household.
Likewise, he recalls the results of the survey by the Ateneo del Dato, which indicate that 73.4% of the population supports the extension of rents, including 65% of PP voters. "In that same study, one out of every two citizens states that they would reconsider their vote if their political option turned its back on this measure, including a third of PP voters," Bustinduy warns the leader of the opposition.
Broad social support for the extension
In the writing, he insists that the extension has "broad and cross-cutting" consensus in society and, in a context marked by the crisis derived from the Iran war, urges Feijóo to "reconsider his position regarding a necessary, reasonable, and beneficial measure for the citizens of this country".
Afterwards, in his statements to the press, Bustinduy has emphasized that, after this letter, Feijóo will not be able to claim ignorance about the consequences of his vote on the housing decree. "If they think they can vote no, with impunity, and that they will not pay a very high political cost for it, they are profoundly mistaken. And the tenants of this country should know that not all political forces are the same," he concluded.
Mónica García maintains optimism about the decree
For her part, the Minister of Health and leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García, has expressed her confidence in gathering sufficient support to definitively move forward with the decree, assuring that "conversations have been maintained at all times" with the different parliamentary groups, without clarifying whether those conversations include Junts.
In the corridors of Congress, García has defended that the extension "will put a tourniquet on the bleeding of housing" in Spain and has insisted that "many more" measures are needed in this area to curb the escalation of rental prices.