The housing decree is passed and Sánchez reflects on whether elections are approaching.

Junts votes down the housing decree and Sánchez meditates on elections PSOE leaders believe they have a window of opportunity to do some comics, but the decision is the responsibility of the Spanish president - CAST - ENG MadridThe Spanish government and Junts have staged a pole at Congress without precedent. After days of 'last-minute' negotiations on the housing decree, the Junts members decided to vote down, with the votes of the PP and Vox, the regulation that suspended evictions and also indefinite rental contracts, which were also opposed by the PNB and Canary Coalition. To give transcendence to the moment, even the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, wanted to speak at the end to demand that they reconsider. "History will judge them with more force than they imagine," he ruled. However, the members, however, last night, after meeting the executive, already communicated to the PSOE that if they did not withdraw the decree law, they would vote against the regulation approved Tuesday by the council of ministers. "You are more interested in the electoral campaign than in solving people's lives," Míriam Nogueras accused them from the far-right, "it does not interest us about the blackmail of the extremes," she added. The transcendence of the vote was such that, even so, the left demanded that the vote be nominal: each deputy expressed their yes or no in a loud voice. "The recent turn is historic," Gabriel Rufián warned, "I will strive so that they end up in political ostracism." While the Sumar deputy Tesh Sidi asked Junts "how many people in Catalonia have to commit suicide" to vote in favor of the housing decrees being debated in Congress. The Spanish government considered that the context of social protest gave them the opportunity to push forward a package on housing with the pluralist majority, running along the legislature, but the reality is that the vote ended as before, in which Junts vetoed with the PP and Vox the government's measures on evictions and the extension of rental contracts. Now, however, there is a difference from previous occasions: this time several sources from the PSOE assure that Pedro Sánchez does not discard advancing elections as a response, since it has been ascertained that he does not have the arithmetic to make the housing policies that he considers necessary and that he believes he demands. Socialist sources consider that housing is the main concern of the citizenry and that the right "has made a mistake" with the direction of its vote. "They are not calibrating the pulse of the citizenry well," they add from Moncloa, which, unlike what they transmit from the PSOE leadership to the streets, receives caution when assessing whether Sánchez will hold elections. In fact, they believe that now is the time to analyze what has happened and also see the magnitude of the mobilizations foreseen for this Saturday in Madrid, Barcelona and the rest of the capitals of the State. In this way, the Spanish government calls for calm, since first thing in the morning there was even speculation about the proceedings in Congress that Sánchez could call immediately if he lost the vote. Once the debate ended and the failure of the pluralist majority was confirmed again, sources from Moncloa demanded that there be some "days" to reflect, while showing they are convinced that in Spain progressivism is further than the parties that support the government and have social support. "It is no longer a question of ideology, but of humanism," they resolve. After two months with Ceuta in the center of public debate, from Moncloa they believe that in the last week the conversation has changed towards social issues, which is where they feel stronger. For this reason, supporters of advancing elections assure that they will not have a "better mark" to be able to compete in the polls. "Either with the people or with the funds around," they repeat throughout the day socialist leaders, already in an electoral campaign. However, it is also true that some elections will completely alter the plans Sánchez currently has. The Spanish president has always set the elections for 2027 and expected that in this final stretch of the legislature amnesty would be applied and that topics like the new financing or the forgiveness of FLA debt could also be approved. In fact, not all of the PSOE truly believe that the best move is to call elections—after Ceuta the socialists had suffered a decline—since the left of the socialists, Sumar, Podemos, among others, are not yet articulated. Would Sánchez be capable of collecting the discontent about housing? Channeling the protests from Puerta del Sol electorally? This is the question that a left-wing leader asked at the gates of Congress, expressing skepticism about the PSOE's ability to mobilize also the more left-wing factions of the electorate without Sumar and Podemos aligned. Pressure on Junts During the debate, Junts took all the criticisms from the left parties and also the government. "Today they will be judged by their votes," Isabel Rodríguez repeated during the debate at Junts, which listened to her attentively from their bench. "It is time for the truth," she continued with a heavy tone, "it is time to comply with the Spanish and Catalan people." The Minister of Housing defended that in the first decree law she presented this Friday, there were measures that Junts had proposed and asked until the end to reconsider their vote or at least abstain. In fact, they offered to process the measures further as a bill in order to include or change what was not right for them. What did Junts reply? Although the offer of the Spanish government was to process the decrees as a bill, the proposal that Junts put on the table was that the Spanish government withdraw the regulation and ensure to negotiate again with them "door-to-door". Sources from Míriam Nogueras' group assure that they did not validate the latest version of the text that the council of ministers approved on Tuesday and they receive how the suspension of evictions, extraordinary rent extensions, or the veto to the purchase of flats by around funds was regulated. Despite the generalized criticisms, several leaders of Junts appear satisfied with the decision made. "We will be at the polls," assures one source, while others congratulate themselves for having recovered the connection with Catalan businesses after the Process, where the post-convergent space turned more towards the left. "Now we have a clear position," another states. In this regard, they interpret that if there are general elections, they will be the only ones at the time to represent, they believe, a different economic model than that of the "extreme left," which they attribute to the housing decrees of Sumar and Podemos—even though the PNB and Canary Coalition have also been added to one of them. The Basque nationalists have expressed a "critical yes for responsibility," but pointed out that despite protecting the "most vulnerable," the measures would hinder the increase in the housing supply. Feijóo asks Sánchez to set a date The PP and Vox have blamed the Spanish government and accused it of advancing comics. "Does he have the pretext? Then he should set a date. Dissolve the courts, call elections and let the Spaniards talk," demanded the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. "No one thinks about Pedro Sánchez until 2031, but no one wants Pedro Sánchez for Christmas," he reaffirmed. It will be the Spanish president who, in the coming days, will decide whether to call the people to the polls. We are working to expand this information