SPAIN: Snap Elections & more – 8th October 2026

Buenos días from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Spain Update from the 12th of February twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what's going down in Spain.

Kicking off this week, we’re continuing with housing protest updates. On Wednesday the 1st, Maricarmen Abascal died at eighty-seven. Maricarmen’s eviction from her home in Madrid sparked a wave of protests over expensive, inadequate, and vulnerable housing. Her death has reignited anger over soaring rents and evictions.

Maricarmen died after spending weeks in hospital with severe anxiety and exhaustion following her eviction on September the 23rd. Police and social workers removed her from the apartment, where she had lived for more than seventy years.

Her home had been bought by Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL, a private investment firm, run by Ricardo Alonso Fernández and Fernando Alonso Fuentes, who increased Maricarmen’s rent from 500 euros a month to 1,500, much more than her 1,300 pension. Although Maricarmen later reached an eight-year agreement allowing her to return at her previous rent, she remained in hospital and never made it home.

Thousands of protesters marched from Madrid’s Puerta del Sol towards parliament following news of her death, chanting, " This is not a death. It’s a murder.”

Next up, big news this week. On Monday the 5th, President Pedro Sánchez called a snap general election for the 29th of November.

The snap election was called after right-wing parties blocked his government’s emergency measures to tackle the country’s worsening housing situation after protests in Madrid. The legislation, which was blocked, included measures to ban evictions until twenty-thirty and regulate temporary and room rentals, all of which opposing parties argued wasn't the best way to address housing concerns.

And that's not all: according to two EU diplomats and an EU official, the snap election could also complicate negotiations over the EU’s long-term budget as Spain is a leading member of the seventeen-country friends of cohesion group. In this case, an unstable national government will make it much harder for the country to approve a difficult EU budget compromise before the end of the year.

The second knock-on event following Maricarmen’s death was initiated by the two largest trade unions, UGT and CCOO, who announced on Wednesday the 7th that they would hold a nationwide general strike on the 11th of November, two weeks before the snap election on the 29th.

This will be the first jointly backed general strike by UGT and CCOO in over fourteen years. Activists have demanded action on soaring rents, evictions and a shortage of affordable housing.

To put it into context, according to numbers from the Bank of Spain, nationally, there is a housing deficit of around 750,000 homes, a figure expected to exceed one million by twenty twenty-eight. And the National Youth Council says that average monthly rent has reached over 1,100 euros, equivalent to around 98.7% of the average monthly salary of a young Spaniard aged between sixteen and twenty-nine.

Moving to other updates, former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont is set to return to the country after the country’s top courts cleared a major legal obstacle that had kept him in self-imposed exile in Belgium since two thousand and seventeen.

The Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday the 6th that an amnesty law passed for Catalan separatists applies to embezzlement charges against Puigdemont. The Supreme Court subsequently lifted the arrest warrant against him, meaning he can return without being detained.

Puigdemont fled the country after holding an independence referendum in Catalunya that Madrid had declared illegal. He later became a key figure in Sánchez’s twenty twenty-three deal with Catalan parties, which secured support for Sánchez’s government in exchange for the amnesty law, which removed charges for those involved in the two thousand and seventeen referendum.

Puigdemont welcomed the rulings as a victory against what he called political repression, although he didn't say when he would return.

Meanwhile, everyone worldwide is talking about data centers, but across the country there is one place in particular that is becoming a central hub.

Aragon’s northeastern region is attracting more than sixty billion euros in planned investment over the next decade thanks to an abundance of renewable energy and available land.

The region’s Project of General Interest of Aragon status is also set up to reduce approval times from several years to less than 12 months, helping attract major projects from Amazon, Microsoft and others. Amazon Web Services is investing over thirty-three billion euros in cloud and AI infrastructure, its largest investment outside the US, while Microsoft says it plans to invest up to ten billion euros.

However, it's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows, as critics are concerned that faster approvals could undermine environmental and public scrutiny. For its part, the central government is considering imposing stricter rules on data centres’ water and electricity use, which, of course, is a great concern for data center skeptics.

In medical news, there is a widespread shortage of hormone replacement therapy or HRT, leaving hundreds of thousands of women struggling to obtain treatment for menopause symptoms nationally.

The shortage began earlier this year in March with shortages of Lenzetto, an estradiol spray, which increased demand for alternatives such as patches and gels, subsequently causing further shortages in August and September. Authorities and manufacturers say the main cause is a sharp rise in demand that has exceeded production capacity, rather than safety or quality problems.

More than 25,000 people have signed a petition demanding urgent government action, while the Institute of Women has also called for adequate solutions.

Late last week, EU interior ministers agreed to strengthen rules for returning migrants who do not have the right to remain, shifting migration policy towards greater enforcement under its new policy dubbed The European Return Order.

Under the proposed rules, people who don't have the right to stay would be required to cooperate with authorities, imposing penalties and criminal charges for those who don't comply.

They are also planning to build return hubs or detention centers outside the EU; unaccompanied minors are excluded. Greece says the first to open will be in an unspecified African country in late twenty twenty-seven, although UN officials have raised safeguarding and oversight concerns because of the quick turnaround.

Moving to fashion now, national sustainable fashion brand Ecoalf is turning marine waste into clothing through its Upcycling the Oceans project, which works with almost 5,000 fishermen.

Since two thousand and fifteen, the initiative has recovered more than 2,000 tonnes of waste from the sea across around eighty ports nationally and in other countries, including France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and Thailand.

About 80% of the waste recovered by fishermen is plastic. Around 5% consists of plastic bottles, which are processed into flakes and pellets before being spun into recycled fibres known as ocean yarn. Other materials, including discarded fishing nets, tyres, cotton and wool, are also recycled into textiles.

At Ecoalf’s Madrid headquarters, these materials are transformed into expertly designed pieces, including clothes that can eventually be disassembled and recycled again. Pretty cool if you ask us!

Now to this week’s thought piece — we’re looking at something that can often go unnoticed when living abroad: loneliness.

Spain is known for its social culture and strong sense of community, but that doesn’t necessarily mean foreigners always find it easy to feel connected. News outlet The Local takes a closer look at why some migrants experience loneliness and what can make building a new social life more difficult than expected.

Moving abroad often means leaving behind familiar routines and support networks. Add language barriers and cultural differences, and it’s pretty easy to see how feelings of isolation can creep in.

Want to know more? Link to the article in the show notes.

Annddd finally, this week’s debate from news outlet Viente Minutos looks at a topic many parents and families can relate to: should we be sharing photos and videos of children on social media?

It’s an interesting debate for anyone living in the country, plus it could be an opportunity to practise some useful Spanish phrases around family life, parenting and social media. The discussion brings together two very different perspectives on where the line should be drawn when it comes to children’s privacy online.

Rather than giving you all the answers, we’ll let you explore the arguments for yourself. The link is in the show notes.

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Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Anything to ask or tell us? Email us at info@rorshok.com.

¡Hasta la próxima!