Spain’s renters march after Congress vote

Spain's Congress, the lower house of parliament, voted down two government housing decrees on 2 October, scrapping modest new protections for renters (Congress, Irish News). A day later, tenants marched in more than 50 towns and cities demanding far more (EFE). Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is caught between them, because he needs votes from Junts, a Catalan pro-independence party that opposed even the measures that failed.

In Madrid, the central government's office in the capital counted 70,000 marchers, while the organising Tenants' Union claimed 500,000 (Europa Press, El País). Both sides have a stake in their number.

The anger predates the vote. Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old Madrid tenant, was evicted on 23 September, and protests outside her home grew into a camp in Puerta del Sol, the city's central square (Irish Times). By Saturday, Madrid's municipal housing company had agreed her return on terms similar to her old lease, though reports did not confirm she had moved back in (Público).

What renters lost

The organisers want rents cut by half, open-ended leases, an end to evictions and the expropriation of homes held by what they call "vulture funds" (Demócrata).

The defeated decrees offered much less. The main one let tenants whose leases ran out by 31 December 2028 ask to stay up to two more years, protected some vulnerable households from eviction, and limited rent rises through 2027 (Civio).

Both were decree-laws, emergency measures that take effect at once but lapse unless Congress ratifies them within 30 days (BOE). They had been in force only since 1 and 2 October, so tenants who asked for extensions in those days now face an open legal question (Civio).

Why seven votes mattered

The main decree fell by 172 votes to 178, and the lease-renewal decree by 166 to 184 (Congress). Junts decided the first vote with its seven deputies. Had they abstained, the decree would have passed (Infobae).

Junts argues that forced extensions load the cost onto small landlords. It cites figures from the Bank of Spain, the country's central bank, showing that private individuals owned 91.9% of homes rented at market prices in 2021 (elDiario.es). The party warns that owners will pull flats off the market, and it wants extensions that landlords grant voluntarily. The figure shows that individuals rather than companies own most rented homes. It does not show that they are small landlords, or that they would withdraw their flats.

As we reported after the vote (To Brief), any text Junts accepts would fall even further short of what the marchers want.

A strike without a date

Madrid's march walked behind a banner reading "Hacia la huelga general" (towards a general strike) (EFE). Tenants' Union spokesperson Valeria Racu expects one "soon", but it has no date and depends on other organisations (Europa Press).

Above all, it depends on CCOO and UGT, Spain's two big labour confederations, and they have not called a strike. They backed the marches and will discuss a joint strategy with tenant groups (laSexta). A general strike is a workers' walkout, and these are the organisations with the reach to stage one.

Employers would resist. Antonio Garamendi, head of the employers' federation CEOE, says a strike over housing alone would not be a labour dispute and that employers would go to court (La Vanguardia). He has a legal hook, since Spain's 1977 strike law bars stoppages unrelated to workers' professional interests (BOE).

Irish papers followed the marches closely, often through Abascal's story (Irish Times, Irish News). The interest likely reflects a rental squeeze familiar beyond Spain, but no EU body will settle this fight. The EU can act only within the powers its treaties hand it (EUR-Lex), and these decrees were Spanish law, made and unmade in Madrid.

That puts the decision back in Congress, where Friday's vote supports a clear conclusion. Sánchez currently lacks the votes even for protections that tenant organisers already consider too weak.