World Affairs
Spain housing protests spread after Congress rejects two emergency decrees
The votes ended a brief effort to change eviction protections, rent rules and lease terms. Organizers called for a housing general strike, but no date or union-wide agreement had been announced.
Executive summary
- A nationwide protest day: Tenant groups called demonstrations in more than 50 Spanish cities on Oct. 3, a day after lawmakers rejected two housing decrees. The Madrid march drew competing estimates: 70,000 from the government delegation and 500,000 from organizers. Those counts are claims by opposing sources, not a single agreed total.[1][2][3]
- What Congress rejected: The decrees covered housing affordability and supply, protections in eviction cases, and stability of habitual-home leases. The official gazette records that both were repealed on Oct. 2 after Congress declined to validate them; the measures are no longer in force.[4][5][6][7]
- What protesters want next: The Madrid Tenants’ Union and allied groups called for a housing general strike and cited rent affordability, evictions and investor ownership. The demand is an organizing call, not an announced strike date or evidence that Spain’s major unions have agreed to one.[1][8]
Demonstrations took place across Spain on Saturday, Oct. 3, after the Congress of Deputies rejected two housing decrees the previous day. EFE reported that the Madrid Tenant Union called marches in more than 50 cities. In Madrid, four columns converged at Cibeles under banners calling for a housing general strike; local groups and officials also reported demonstrations elsewhere.[1][2][3]
Attendance in Madrid remains disputed. The Government Delegation put the crowd at 70,000, while the organizers claimed 500,000, EFE reported. The gap is substantial, and neither estimate should be presented as an independently established count. Organizers said they would seek support for a general strike, but EFE reported no agreed date or settled plan involving the country’s largest unions.[1][2][8]
The government had adopted the measures as two royal decree-laws on Sept. 29. Decree-law 26/2026 covered housing affordability and supply, including temporary limits on certain home acquisitions and changes to eviction procedures for some economically vulnerable tenants. Decree-law 27/2026 sought to change the rules for extensions of habitual-home leases. The decrees required parliamentary validation to remain in force.[4][5]
The official gazette records both decrees as repealed on Oct. 2, after Congress did not validate them. They had taken effect briefly: Decree-law 26 on Oct. 1 and Decree-law 27 on Oct. 2. Their repeal means the new provisions no longer govern going forward; it does not itself resolve how a particular transaction or legal step taken during that short period should be treated.[4][5][6][7]
The demonstrations followed the Sept. 23 eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal from a Madrid home where she had lived for decades. The episode became a rallying point for tenant groups, and EFE reported that a later agreement would allow her to return. Protesters voiced demands over rents, evictions and investment funds, while the rejected decrees had also drawn objections from parties across the parliamentary opposition.[1][2][9]
The Oct. 3 protests demonstrate turnout around the issue, but they do not establish public support for every measure in the decrees or settle the legislation’s political future. The next concrete step remains uncertain: organizers were discussing a broader strike call, while the government would need parliamentary support for any replacement legislation.[1][8][3]
The image is a file photograph from a separate Madrid housing-rights march on Sept. 26, not Saturday’s demonstrations.[10]