The Plenary Session of Congress rejected this Tuesday the validation of the rent decree-law with the votes against from PP, Vox, Junts and the abstention of the PNV. The Executive has finally not obtained the necessary support to move forward with a text that was part of the plan of measures promoted to respond to the effects of the war in Iran.
In fact, the Government arrived at this plenary session without the support of the groups to push through the validation of the text, after Junts announced its vote against it. For its part, the president of the EBB of the PNV, Aitor Esteban, had confirmed this morning that the Basque Group would lean towards abstention in the vote, considering that the norm suffers from a "lack of legal certainty".
Extraordinary Council of Ministers
The decree-law was approved in an extraordinary Council of Ministers on March 20.
That Friday, the ministers of Sumar staged a gesture of internal pressure by threatening not to participate in the meeting if the package did not incorporate urgent measures on housing. From the PSOE, however, they were reluctant, considering that there were not enough parliamentary supports to move them forward in Congress. Time has proven them right.
Finally, the Executive opted for an intermediate solution. On the one hand, it approved the economic response plan, which was subsequently validated in Congress, and on the other, it decided to process the extension of rental contracts through a separate decree-law.
The text contemplated the possibility of extending lease agreements for two years that end between March 21, 2026, and December 31, 2027, in addition to setting the cap on annual rent reviews at 2%.
Sumar asked for concessions from Junts
The Minister of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs, Pablo Bustinduy, expressed himself this Monday confident in achieving the definitive approval of the decree and went so far as to call on the PSOE to offer Junts the franchised VAT for the self-employed and bonuses for landlords so that the convergents support the norm.
But this Tuesday, the positions of the minority partner in the Government have diversified. The spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, Verónica Martínez Barbero, refused this morning to accept the defeat in the decree vote and asked to continue negotiating until the last minute, despite the announcements by PNV and Junts.
Other sectors of the plurinational group, however, did not share the optimism of their spokesperson. The deputy from Compromís integrated into Sumar, Alberto Ibáñez, has been especially harsh with the Basque and Catalan nationalists, lashing out at the refusal of both formations to back the decree, reminding them that they could maintain their "humanist" political tradition.
The spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, Tesh Sidi, has criticized that the PSOE has left them "alone" in this negotiation and in similar terms, the deputy for Compromís in the Mixed Group, Águeda Micó, has reproached the PSOE for having "not wanted" nor "believed in" the decree.
PP and Vox, a 'no' from the beginning
For their part, PP and Vox had been warning for weeks that they had not held any negotiations with Sumar and that, consequently, they would vote against the decree this Tuesday.
Vox announced from the beginning that it would oppose the text, and the PP also positioned itself in the 'no' because, according to the 'popular' spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, the measures promoted by Sumar "do not work" to alleviate the housing crisis and even worsen the situation.