Vivienda, el gran fracaso de Sánchez

"Vivienda, el gran fracaso de Sánchez" is the headline that encapsulates the failure of Pedro Sánchez's administration in the realm of housing. The rejection of the two decrees approved by the PSOE and Sumar reveals the collapse of the legislative term. The government attempts to blame the opposition and Junts for their inability to pass legislation.

The approval of the majority of the Congress of Deputies to the two decrees approved by the government to further intervene in housing confirms the legislative term's collapse and that the misguided measures to manipulate the real estate market have been the great failure of Pedro Sánchez since his arrival at Moncloa. The outcome of his management over the past years is that the availability of rental properties has plummeted by 61% since 2020, and its cost has risen by an average of 40%.

This is mainly due to his failure to address the main bottleneck in this market, which is the lack of available properties in cities with the highest demand, but instead, has focused on redistributing scarcity, imposing ever-increasing restrictions on property owners.

The nullified decrees, which become the shortest in democracy, with barely a few hours of validity, delve into this wrong path, and if validated, would have had equally detrimental effects for those it allegedly intended to benefit. This has been another constant in the PSOE and Sumar executive action in a clearly unproductive legislative term, in terms of measures that improve the lives of the majority of citizens.

Ironically, that was the main argument used in the chamber by Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez, by spokesmen for groups advocating for greater intervention in housing, and by Sánchez himself, who used the prerogative to intervene just before the parliamentary vote.

However, experts had warned that extending until the end of 2030 the veto on evictions, limiting the purchase of properties by investment funds, returning the caps to rental prices, and most importantly, imposing an indefinite extension of rental contracts as included in the decree promoted by Sumar would have further depressed supply, again pushing up prices.

Contrary to what spokesmen for left-wing advocates in the Lower Chamber argued throughout yesterday's tense debate, the best news for those seeking a place to live is the failure of the ultra-interventionist decrees by PSOE and Sumar. Aware of the palpable evidence of their inability to pass any measure of substance in Congress due to the loss of support from those who voted for their investiture, Sánchez resorted to the ploy of blaming the opposition parties for this latest parliamentary defeat, but in no way has he tried to negotiate with the PP or Vox, nor incorporate any of the measures they had proposed.

A reconciliation between the PSOE and the Popular group, which has the most deputies in the Chamber, could have resulted in a more sensible regulation, and above all, given stability to the housing legislation, which is what the market ultimately needs after the immense legal insecurity created by the government. Only when it was finally reached with Junts, who had publicly rejected the decrees the night before due to their protection of small property owners against their tenants, did Sánchez attempt to reconcile.

However, after his negative vote was confirmed, he received harsh invectives from the left and other separatist parties. Junts has marked the course of the legislative term from the beginning because Sánchez bought their support for the infamous amnesty law dictated by the fugitive former president of the Generalitat from Waterloo.

But it has been almost two years since Junts announced the rupture of its alliance with the PSOE, despite the fact that the president has tried to stretch the term to retain power, without being able to pass a single budget or reforms that address the structural problems of the economy. Spain has been paralyzed for too long, and Sánchez should have called elections much earlier.