Spain’s anti-Israel PM calls snap elections after his minority gov’t failed in key vote

Pedro Sánchez, one of Europe’s fiercest Israel critics, calls snap Spanish election after housing vote defeat in parliament.

By World Israel News Staff

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called a snap general election for November 29, putting the future of one of Europe’s most outspokenly anti-Israel governments before voters as his left-wing coalition struggles with a housing revolt, parliamentary paralysis and mounting political scandals.

Sánchez announced Monday that he would dissolve parliament after lawmakers rejected two emergency housing decrees intended to protect renters and curb soaring housing costs.

“The time has come for the Spanish people to decide what future you want for yourselves and for your country,” Sánchez said in a televised address from the Moncloa Palace. “It’s now up to you.”

The Socialist leader, who has governed Spain since 2018, portrayed the election as a choice between his progressive political project and a potential right-wing government led by the conservative People’s Party with support from Vox.

Sánchez acknowledged dissatisfaction even among voters who previously backed his government.

“I also know that part of that social majority is dissatisfied today,” he said, while conceding that his government had “made mistakes” and failed to achieve everything it promised.

But the election will determine more than Spain’s domestic economic agenda.

Under Sánchez, Madrid has moved to the forefront of European efforts to isolate and pressure Israel, repeatedly clashing with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and adopting measures going substantially beyond those taken by many other EU governments.

Just weeks before calling the election, Sánchez used his address to the United Nations General Assembly to again accuse Israel of genocide, boasting that Spain had imposed an arms embargo on Netanyahu’s government and prevented Spanish territory from being used to assist Israeli military operations.

Spain, he said, had acted by “imposing an arms embargo on Netanyahu’s government in Israel” and by “condemning without qualification the genocide that Netanyahu continues perpetrating in Gaza.”

Sánchez’s confrontation with Israel has developed steadily since the war began.

In May 2024, his government formally recognized a Palestinian state alongside Ireland and Norway, despite Israeli objections that unilateral recognition rewarded Hamas following October 7.

In 2025, Sánchez announced a broad package of measures that included legally entrenching an arms embargo on Israel, barring ships carrying fuel for the Israeli military from Spanish ports and preventing state aircraft carrying defense equipment to Israel from entering Spanish airspace.

His government also moved to bar imports from Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria that Spain regards as illegal under international law, restrict consular assistance to Spaniards living in those communities and increase financial support for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.

“This is not defending yourself,” Sánchez said while announcing the measures. “It is the extermination of a defenseless people.”

He said the package was intended “to stop the genocide in Gaza, prosecute its perpetrators, and support the Palestinian people.”

The policy produced one of the sharpest diplomatic confrontations between Israel and a major Western European country.

Then-Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Sánchez of pursuing “antisemitic” policies and seeking to distract from corruption allegations at home. Israel also barred two Spanish ministers from entering the country, while Madrid responded with restrictions of its own and summoned Israel’s senior diplomat.

Sánchez has additionally pushed for suspending aspects of the EU’s relationship with Israel, backed international legal proceedings targeting Israeli officials and called for Israel to be excluded from international cultural competitions in the same manner as Russia.

“We cannot allow double standards in culture,” Sánchez said in 2025 while arguing that Israel should be excluded from events such as Eurovision.

The election therefore offers the possibility of a significant change in Spanish policy toward Jerusalem.

Polls currently put the opposition People’s Party, led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, well ahead of Sánchez’s Socialists. Recent surveys place the PP at roughly 32% to 34%, compared with approximately 26% to 27% for Sánchez’s PSOE, while Vox is polling around 18% to 19%.

A PP-Vox majority would almost certainly produce a markedly different tone toward Israel, although Feijóo himself has also become increasingly critical of Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Feijóo called the situation facing Palestinian civilians “inadmissible” last year, but rejected Sánchez’s approach and faulted the prime minister for frequently discussing Israel without simultaneously emphasizing Hamas and the hostages.

The immediate cause of Monday’s election announcement was nevertheless domestic.

Sánchez’s minority coalition suffered a damaging defeat Friday when the PP, Vox and the Catalan separatist Junts party combined to defeat emergency housing measures in Spain’s 350-seat Congress of Deputies.

The proposals included protections against the eviction of vulnerable tenants until 2030, extensions of some rent controls and new restrictions on temporary and room-by-room rentals.

Junts argued that the measures would discourage landlords from renting properties and ultimately reduce housing supply, while the PP has said Spain needs substantially more home construction rather than additional regulation.

The defeat came amid rapidly growing public anger over housing affordability.

The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her Madrid home became a national flashpoint, helping drive demonstrations across dozens of Spanish cities.

Authorities estimated that about 70,000 people participated in Saturday’s Madrid housing protest, while organizers claimed attendance was far higher.

Spain’s rental costs have risen dramatically over the past decade, with housing consuming an increasingly large portion of young workers’ incomes.

Sánchez has also struggled to govern with a deeply fragmented parliament. His coalition controls only 147 of 350 seats and has been forced to negotiate individual votes with an assortment of regional and separatist parties.

His government has not passed a new national budget since 2023.

At the same time, legal investigations and corruption allegations involving figures close to the Socialist Party and members of Sánchez’s personal circle have given the opposition another line of attack, while a major migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has intensified pressure from the right.