PNV support saves Pedro Sánchez’s housing decree in the midst of the political crisis in Spain

The Spanish political and institutional board goes through hours of maximum tension and extreme volatility. Following the surprise announcement by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to advance the general elections for November 29, the government was in a desperate race to rescue part of its legislative agenda. In this context of deep uncertainty and parliamentary fragility, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has again become the faithful of the balance on the peninsula. The Basque formation formally confirmed that it will give the approval to the decree law which includes structural measures on access to the habitat, thus ensuring its agonic validation in the context of the Permanent Congress.

The legislative shipwreck that precipitated the electoral advancement

The immediate origin of this political earthquake dates back to last Friday, when the Congress plenary was the scene of a hard and decisive defeat for the progressive ruling coalition. On that day, the Executive took to the House two regulations considered crucial to try to regulate and pacify the country’s tense real estate market. The two initiatives, however, ended up fading in a feverish way by failing to gather the basic support needed to prosper.

The first text, which included broad-spectrum general provisions, was blocked by a relentless parliamentary clamp made up of the People’s Party (PP), the extreme right of Vox and the Catalan independence of Junts. The second document, which focused very specifically on imposing the mandatory extension of lease contracts, was even more rejected, adding to its relentless detractors the negative votes of the PNV itself and the representation of the Canadian Coalition.

The fall of these projects was not just a routine parliamentary setback; it operated as the definitive detonator that made the already fragile Spanish legislature jump into the air. In the face of the mathematical evidence of an irreparable loss of the majority in the chambers, Pedro Sánchez made the drastic decision to dissolve both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate, calling the public to the polls. Despite this picture of land being destroyed, the Council of Ministers decided to return to the burden this week. In a play of enormous tactical audacity, the Executive rewrote the repealed texts, introducing minor and subtle technical modifications to overcome the legal obstacle that prevents the exact same document that has just been rejected from voting.

Manifesto del Ejecutivo: la vía de la Diputación Permanente

With the General Courts already dissolved by constitutional mandate, the physical and legal scene of the legislative battle had to be transferred to the Permanent Council. This body, which functions as a kind of guard and custody of the legislative power during periods of recess or parliamentary vacuum, quickly became the last institutional trench of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and its left-wing allies. Unlike in the ordinary plenary of the previous week, the exact numbers in this reduced forum offered the government a minimal and unexpected window of opportunity to save at least half of its ambitious housing package.

The role of referee of Basque nationalism

The internal architecture of the Permanent Council is composed of exactly 69 seats, distributed in a proportional manner to reflect on a scale the forces of the dissolved hemicycle. The progressive orientation block, composed of the PSOE, the Sumar platform, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), the abertzale Bildu coalition and Poder – the latter that acts on behalf of the whole Joint Group – is a total of 34 seats. In front of them, the conservative and independent right-wing block, made up of the PP, Vox and Junts, brings together the same number of legislators: 34 votes.

In this suffocating scenario of perfect technical tie, the only member of the NPV in this body assumed an absolute and definitive decision-making power on the future of State policies. The key to legislative governance in housing matters was once again under the control of Sabin Etxea’s directives.

The content of the laws in dispute and their immediate future

Aware of the enormous political weight of their position of privilege, the main leaders of the NPV announced that they would subject both documents to thorough scrutiny before issuing a final verdict. Finally, the nationalist and democratic court formation chose to repeat exactly the same pattern of voting that it had carried out days ago before all the legislators. The Basque representatives will bring their indispensable affirmative vote to the first decree, allowing the general policies driven by officialism to come into force.

This legislation rescues measures that have a profound social impact on Spanish citizenship. It includes a strict ban on the execution of evictions for families in proven economic vulnerability, a persistent drama in Iberian society. It also provides for severe limits to the operation of so-called vulture funds in the sales market, seeking to curb financial speculation with essential goods. The text is completed with an ambitious package of tax bonuses designed strategically to give economic incentives to owners and tenants alike. Thanks to the solitaire but decisive Basque support, this legal framework will be validated by a very tight and agonic margin of 35 votes in favour of 34 rejections.

On the contrary, the fate of the second decree seems to be definitely sealed into failure. The government initiative, which sought to intervene fully in the market by imposing the automatic and compulsory renewal of continuous rental contracts, was in front of the private property and free market defence model that the PNV historically calls. By ratifying their negative vote in an unchanging way, the Basque nationalists left the administration of Pedro Sánchez without the indispensable majority in the transitional parliamentary body, condemning this second text to an inevitable de facto repeal.

In this way, the Spanish Government’s complex survival strategy is only partially successful. It ensures a basic and indispensable social protection umbrella in the face of the threat of evictions, but it fails openly in its political attempt to intervene in the mechanics of private leases before the entire country has to go back to the polls to define its historical course.