The Confederation of Tenants' Unions has called demonstrations outside every town hall across Spain for Thursday at 8pm. Protesters will bring saucepans. The group says the demonstrations are meant to pressure parliamentary parties before Friday's extraordinary plenary session and defend the full housing package.
Congress will vote on two government decree-laws on Friday, 2 October. The first covers anti-eviction measures and rent regulation; the second would create automatic renewals for existing rental contracts.
Junts and Podemos have not confirmed how they will vote, leaving the government facing an uncertain path to the parliamentary support needed for both texts to pass and enter into force.
Reuters reported that the government's housing response accelerated after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal became a national protest trigger. Her case helped turn an individual eviction into a wider campaign over Spain's housing policies.
The decision to split the measures has become the basic dispute. Unions fear lawmakers could approve immediate protections against evictions and rent increases but reject automatic lease renewals, which they see as the more lasting change.
That is why the campaign targets every party in Congress, including those outside the government. The unions say six days of street protests pushed Pedro Sánchez's government to accept almost all the measures in the Decreto Maricarmen.
They now want every parliamentary group to back both decrees. Reuters and Euronews have reported that the government is trying to secure a majority for the two separate texts.
The Confederation says emergency legislation cannot undo decades of housing policy that turned homes into a business. It sees the vote as a chance to change that approach and links the effort to a wider campaign for a general housing strike.
The unions' demands go beyond the measures before Congress. Organisers are also calling for tighter controls on seasonal and short-term rentals, as well as room rentals. Some groups want rents not to rise at all in certain situations, The Tenants’ Unions says.
Twenty-two demonstrations have been confirmed for the weekend of 3 and 4 October. They are planned in Madrid, València, Cádiz, Sevilla, Palma, Guadalajara, Girona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Zaragoza, Donostia, Gasteiz, Iruñea, Huelva, Granada, Valladolid, A Coruña, Toledo, Vigo, Bilbo, Logroño and Murcia.
A column will also travel from Barcelona to the event in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. The mobilisation follows several days of protests in cities across Spain. Euronews reported on one, a protest camp on Madrid's Puerta del Sol.
The L'Hospitalet event was initially planned as a tribute to Olga, a resident who died by suicide after an eviction. Unions now want it to honour her and demand that no one face the same situation again.
Approval of only one decree would leave the package incomplete. Tenant unions are focusing their pressure on both votes and do not see the anti-eviction measures and automatic renewals as interchangeable. Until Congress acts, the protections remain proposals awaiting convalidation. Friday's decision will show whether the government's housing response can secure enough parliamentary support.
