Spain's economic data has been positive recently, but politically, the country has been mired in a prolonged crisis for months. On Monday, the social democratic Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez responded with a surprise move to break the deadlock: He is calling an early election for November 29. The sudden announcement followed a dramatic political defeat for the government.
On Friday, October 2, Sanchez's emergency measures to tackle the housing crisis failed in parliament. Seven lawmakers from the conservative Catalan separatist party Junts, whose support the government has relied on since 2023, brought the measures down. Sanchez says he is now calling for a "much broader progressive majority." The defeat came after months of growing instability in the government's parliamentary base.
Spain's parliament has not passed a regular budget since 2023. The recent crisis over mass migration to Ceuta and several corruption scandals involving allegations against the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and people close to Sanchez have piled pressure onto the government. And then came Maricarmen.
The forced eviction of 87-year-old Maria del Carmen Abascal last month suddenly turned the housing shortage into the headline political issue. The fact that his emergency measures were rejected in parliament allows Sanchez to position himself as a defender of tenants. However, it remains to be seen whether that strategy will pay off.
The housing shortage has been at the top of Spaniards' list of concerns for around three years. According to estimates by the Bank of Spain, the country is currently short of around 750,000 homes, and the figure could exceed one million by 2028. More than half of 18- to 34-year-olds live with their parents or depend on them financially.
Property prices have recently been rising three times as fast as wages. In Spain, social housing accounts for just around 1.7 percent of the country's housing stock, putting it at the lower end of the EU scale in comparison with other member states. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video It is hardly surprising, then, that protest camps sprang up in Madrid and elsewhere in response to the plight of Maricarmen Abascal, and tens of thousands took to the streets across the country.
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