'Your profits, our misery': Spain's parliament kills the housing decree, and the streets answer back

Spain's housing crisis has crossed the line from street anger into a parliamentary defeat that may yet bring down the government's plans. On Friday, lawmakers voted down the minority government's emergency housing decree by 178 votes to 172, killing a package that had been drawn up in response to mass fury over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman. The decree had sought to ban evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, extend a two-year rent freeze for existing leases, and impose tighter rules on short-term rentals. Crowds gathered outside the assembly as the vote was taken, chanting "your profits, our misery" at the legislators filing past. It failed because the government's sometime ally walked away. Lawmakers from the Catalan separatist party Junts joined the opposition in voting the measure down, arguing that the proposals would worsen the crisis by reducing housing supply. They were joined by the centre-right Popular Party and the far-right Vox. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez spoke at the end of a five-hour parliamentary debate, making a last appeal to the chamber's 350 members. "What is behind these decrees is the desire to instil order and a sense of humanity in a market that if we do not rein it in will destroy our society," he said. "Do the right thing, or history will judge you, and sooner than you think." Each legislator then voted by roll call. The jeers from the protesters outside followed the result into the chamber's public gallery, where onlookers shouted that "vulture funds govern the congress". The defeat has landed squarely on a movement that was already organised. The eviction of pensioner Maricarmen Abascal last week detonated a wave of anger over the cost of housing that has been building for a decade. Rents have doubled in ten years. Average prices now reach 1,176 euros a month, the equivalent of 98.7 per cent of the average salary for a young person, according to the Youth Council of Spain. Many young Spaniards live with their parents past the age of thirty. Young people pitched tents in Madrid's central square and other cities for almost a week, an encampment that recalls the anti-austerity sit-ins of the 2008-12 financial crisis. The Tenants' Union, which drove the protests, said the encampment would continue and expand to other neighbourhoods. "We're aiming for a general strike," said spokesperson Alicia del Rio. The renters' association Sindicato de Inquilinas called for more mass rallies on Saturday, with more than 50 protests planned across the country. The speculation now is political. The defeat has sparked talk that Sanchez could bring elections forward from next year, a gamble for a minority government that has just watched its housing policy die on the floor of the house. But the sharper pressure is coming from below. Spain's streets have issued their verdict on a decade of doubling rents and speculative markets: if parliament will not rein in the market, the encampments will not leave.