Spanish Lawmakers Revive Decree Pausing Evictions, Extending Leases

Spain’s Congress has revived the Maricarmen decree, which temporarily suspends evictions for vulnerable families and extends leases for two years, according to the Catalan newspaper Ara. The vote came on Thursday, a few hours before the campaign for the Nov. 29 general election opens and one day after a general strike for housing.

A second decree that would have made rental contracts indefinite did not pass.

How the vote worked

The decree was approved by the Diputación Permanente (the permanent deputation), the body that stays in office after the lower house is dissolved. PP, Vox and Junts had struck the decree down a little over a month earlier. The government brought it back days after that first defeat, and the day after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called early elections.

This time the votes of PSOE, Sumar, ERC, EH Bildu, the Basque nationalists and Podemos were enough to validate it. Ara reports that the government did not need Junts votes to reach an absolute majority in the deputation.

The decree that failed

The second decree, which set up indefinite rental contracts, was blocked when the Basque nationalists voted against it. Maribel Vaquero, their spokesperson in Congress, called the measure counterproductive because it would reduce the supply of rentals. She said the two-year extension in the approved decree was enough and buys time for a different proposal, one not pushed through “the back door,” as she put it.

Social Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy, of Sumar, defended the failed decree. He put the average saving for a tenant at 4,341 euros and said the government calculates that about 5 million people would have benefited from successive, indefinite extensions of contracts. The decree also provided compensation for tenants if a landlord wanted to end a contract early. Bustinduy called the general strike a success and urged PP, Vox and Junts to find a proposal that delivers comparable savings.

What the parties said

Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez, of the PSOE, used the debate to call on people who support the right to housing to turn out at the polls on Nov. 29.

Josep Maria Cruset of Junts, who opposed both decrees, accused the government of “far-left populism” and called the measures an “electoralist operation” pushed through with the legislature almost over.

PP deputy Sergio Sayas described the approval as “a fraud against democracy.” He said the government slipped through decrees that Congress had already rejected, taking advantage of a permanent deputation whose makeup, in his words, does not represent the full plenary session. The rejection of those decrees was what triggered the election call, with just over two weeks to go.

The debate also included a clash between ERC spokesperson Gabriel Rufián and Junts. Rufián criticized the Junts vote and again held up a 50-euro bill to argue that money is the “estelada” (Catalan independence flag) for Carles Puigdemont’s party. Cruset accused Rufián of acting as an “emotional abuser,” and Rufián replied by accusing Junts of collaborating with the Spanish right.

What this means for tenants

The approved decree keeps in place the temporary suspension of evictions for vulnerable families and a two-year extension of leases. The measure that would have extended contracts indefinitely, and compensated tenants whose landlords ended them early, is dead for now. Housing has been a main issue in the run-up to the vote: the street protest on Wednesday, Nov. 11, shaped the parliamentary debate, and ministers directly urged voters to treat housing as a ballot issue.

The next date is Nov. 29, when Spain votes in the general election.

Source: Ara