Spain’s left-wing minority government is being dragged into a deep political crisis by the country’s massive housing crisis. Parliament rejected two decrees, through which Social Democratic Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sought to mitigate the dramatic consequences of rising rents and the evictions of vulnerable tenants.

During the roll-call vote in the plenary session, the decrees were voted down by lawmakers from the conservative People’s Party (PP), the far-right Vox, the conservative Catalan separatist party Junts (on whose decisive support Sánchez had been counting), as well as two other lawmakers.

The housing protest in #Valencia has ended, having surrounded the Palau de les Arts where a real estate speculators’ fair is being held. A group managed to gain access. A huge number of young people turned out. In the end, police charged with rubber bullets and pepper spray. Shame https://t.co/6PmS8FWeK1

— Ignacio Blanco (@iblanco_gnr) October 3, 2026

The first decree was rejected by 178 out of 350 members of parliament, while the second was voted down by 184 members. The minority government is struggling to pass anything through parliament anyway, as the Junts party, with seven lawmakers, withdrew its support months ago.

Sánchez’s Appeals Were in Vain

Speaking personally during the debate, Pedro Sánchez called on lawmakers to support the decrees in question in order to prevent significant “harm” to society. Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez, who is also a member of the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), noted that with this vote, lawmakers will show whether they stand with citizens or with “speculative investment funds” seeking to dominate the housing market. “This is the moment of truth,” he reiterated, referring to a previous statement by Sánchez that had sparked rumors of early elections.

_{87-year-old Marie Carmen Abascal was evicted from the home where she had lived for decades}

The government had implemented measures to protect vulnerable tenants last Tuesday, following the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, Marie Carmen Abascal, from the home where she had lived for decades and the mass protests that ensued. The legislative package provided, among other things, for the extension of protection against evictions, stricter regulation of leases, a ban on the purchase of private residences by speculative investment funds until 2028, as well as tax breaks for tenants and landlords. A second decree would extend leases set to expire by the end of 2028 for two years.

| Chaos in Valencia: Thousands of protesters clashed with police during a housing protest and attempted to break through the security cordon.

The incidents occurred amid a demonstration against a real estate summit being held in the city. https://t.co/yGGSmWOeWH

— Polymarket Español (@polymarketenesp) October 3, 2026

High Demand, Few New Construction Projects

The crisis in the Spanish housing market is due to many factors. First, since 2015, the country’s population has grown by three million people, or 7%. At the same time, tourism has seen a significant uptick, and since 2018, the number of overnight stays in tourist accommodations has doubled, as noted by the newspaper El País.

In popular tourist destinations such as the Balearic Islands, Alicante, Málaga, and the Canary Islands, many foreign buyers are competing with locals in the housing market, driving prices upward. At the same time, far fewer new homes are being built than are needed. The Bank of Spain estimates that, if nothing changes, there will be a shortage of at least one million homes by 2028.

The Opposition’s “Alternative Approach”

Opposition lawmakers, for their part, argue that the proposed measures would further limit the supply of new housing, driving rents to even more unaffordable levels. Miriam Nogueras, of the Catalan party Junts, called on the government to withdraw the decrees and proposed new negotiations to amend them. Until the very last moment, Prime Minister Sánchez had hoped that Junts would approve at least the first decree, but that did not happen.

Spanish police using batons, rubber bullets, and tear gas against housing protesters in Valencia https://t.co/KurlsuqotE

— L’Accent (@laccent) October 3, 2026

The government was pushing the two decrees in response to the growing discontent among many Spaniards, who are unable to find affordable housing or are under pressure from constant rent hikes, facing the threat of eviction. The last straw was the eviction of 87-year-old María Carmen Abascal, as police officers forcibly removed her from the home where she had spent nearly her entire life.

The elderly woman’s eviction sparked an outpouring of outrage. In Madrid, as well as in other cities across Spain, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets chanting “No more Maricarmen” (“Ni una Maricarmen más”). In Madrid, protesters had set up a camp in front of the headquarters of the conservative regional government in the central Plaza de la Puerta del Sol. Similar protests also took place in Barcelona, Seville, and Málaga.

Source: Proto Thema