“There is always a plan B”. With that phrase, Moncloa summarizes today the parliamentary defeat suffered yesterday by the Government. After letting a few hours pass to point out those who voted against —Junts, PP and VOX— and trying to fight the only battle still open, that of the narrative, the Executive now faces the decisive question: and now what?
With greater or lesser vehemence, depending on the government wing consulted, in the Executive they agree on one idea: the extension of rents must be shielded. The discrepancy appears at the next step, the truly relevant one in politics: how to do it.
What the Government rules out, at least immediately, is registering another Royal Decree-Law identical to the rejected one. At Moncloa, they interpret that “Parliament told the Government that it does not have sufficient majorities”, a reading that mixes numerical realism and political warning. Repeating the same formula without changes would mean exposing itself to a second defeat and enlarging the image of parliamentary weakness.
However, the decree route does not completely disappear from the board. Article 86 of the Constitution allows the Government to approve Royal Decree-Laws in cases of “extraordinary and urgent necessity”, a tool designed precisely to respond quickly to situations that cannot await the ordinary processing of a law. And in the Executive they are aware that the access to housing and the protection of thousands of tenants fit politically into that framework of social urgency.
The key, therefore, would not be legal but arithmetic: the problem is not so much whether another decree can be approved, but whether it would later manage to be ratified in Congress. Therein lies the true blockage.
The partners pressure for the Government to move a piece
The progressive allies of the Executive in Congress agree on the need to act, although they differ in the diagnosis and in the public pressure that should be exerted.
EH Bildu considers that “the important thing is that these measures can be implemented as soon as possible”. They add that “the Government has different instruments to propose them again and find the appropriate formula”. In the Basque formation, they understand that it is an urgent matter and of extreme necessity for thousands of families and they hope that “the Government works as necessary to make a measure of justice like this a reality”.
From Podemos, however, the tone is more severe. Its leader, Ione Belarra, shares the urgency, but offers a much more pessimistic reading: “they are going to let it die”, she summarizes in reference to the decree overturned in the Chamber. The message contains a double criticism: to the PSOE for lack of ambition and to Sumar for inability to force the majority partner.
ERC, for its part, again attacks Junts after the harsh clash experienced in the chamber. The republicans maintain that “they screwed over for particular interests three million people, half a million Catalans, so let them explain why, that the Government constantly present it until they get tired or people walk all over them”.
The republican spokesperson has also criticized this Thursday the scarce involvement of the PSOE in the previous negotiations to guarantee that the text would prosper. An accusation that points to the heart of the problem: it is not enough to point out those who vote no; it also matters how one gets to the vote.
A defeat with strategic reading
What happened again portrays the structural fragility of the legislature. The Government promotes measures of social profile that cohere its ideological bloc, but then runs into a parliamentary arithmetic where each vote demands concessions, millimetric negotiation and growing political costs.
In other words: the left maintains programmatic initiative, but the right and the peripheral partners retain blocking capacity. That is today the true equation of power in Madrid. And also the reason why, beyond the noise, Moncloa is already looking for that “plan B”.