Finally, on November 11, the unions UGT and CCOO have called for a general strike. A strike that occurs in a peculiar context, pointed out this Tuesday by the campaign chief of the acting president and leader of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero, stating that this demonstration will be against the opposition and not against the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
Nevertheless, Spain faces a situation for which it is difficult to find an equivalent precedent in the European Union.
And it is that the unions CCOO and UGT are preparing a nationwide general strike while the Cortes Generales are already dissolved, the country is immersed in the electoral process for the elections on November 29, and the Government is trying to bring to the Permanent Deputation - it is still unknown what day, although they are already published in the BOE - some housing decrees that were rejected by Congress.
In any case, the comparative analysis of general strikes in Europe shows that the large union mobilizations of recent decades have occurred, as a general rule, in a different institutional scenario: with Parliaments open, Governments making decisions, and the reforms against which the unions protested still in the process of negotiation, debate, or approval.
No other recent case appears, among the European precedents located by DEMÓCRATA, that simultaneously gathers the circumstances that occur now in Spain: a national general strike called after the dissolution of Parliament and with an electoral campaign already underway.
The uniqueness is not, therefore, that a strike may coincide with an electoral period. Nor that the unions have historically used mobilization to influence political decisions. The exceptional thing is the institutional moment in which the protest is raised, without Budgets for almost four years and with a Cortes that have ceased to function as an ordinary legislature, and where citizens are called to decide the composition of the next Parliament, while the protest unfolds amid that electoral dispute.
The great European strikes were made with Parliament open
The study of the European Parliament Towards an EU-wide right to politically strike: A constitutional perspective, published in 2024, allows situating the phenomenon in perspective. The report analyzes political strikes and distinguishes between those that have a direct relationship with labor conditions and the so-called purely political strikes, aimed essentially against a decision of the Government or the legislator.
The period of greatest intensity occurred during the economic and European debt crisis.
Greece recorded 17 general strikes between 2010 and 2011 and another 12 during 2012. Spain, for its part, had general strikes in 2010, 2012, and 2013. Portugal also experienced several national mobilizations during those years.
The pattern repeats: the trade unions used the strike as a pressure instrument while the Governments and Parliaments were making decisions that affected salaries, employment, pensions, taxes, or public spending.
The Greek case is especially significant. On September 26, 2012, a general strike occurred against the new austerity package that the Government was negotiating in the midst of the debt crisis.
The objective of the mobilization was to exert pressure on measures that were being discussed and that had to go through the legislative institutions. Greece experienced that year an extraordinary succession of general strikes, but all of them took place with the Parliament in operation.
Portugal offers a similar scenario. The general strike on November 24, 2011, was directed against the austerity measures and the budget for 2012. The Portuguese Parliament was then immersed in the processing of public accounts. The mobilization occurred, therefore, as a pressure mechanism on a decision that was still in the hands of the political institutions.
And Spain is part of the same historical pattern. The general strikes of 2010, 2012, and 2013 took place during ordinary legislatures, with the Government and Parliament in operation. In November 2012, moreover, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, and Malta participated in a coordinated mobilization of European dimension, with solidarity actions in other countries, including France.
The difference with the current scenario is substantial. Those strikes aimed to alter, stop, or modify decisions that were being adopted by Governments and Parliaments. The one that CCOO and UGT are now preparing is proposed after Congress has rejected the housing decrees and once the Cortes have been dissolved.
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Greece: 25 general strikes in six years
The dimension of the Greek precedent allows us to understand to what extent the general strike has been a common tool of political pressure in Europe. Between 2010 and 2015, Greece accumulated 25 general strikes, according to the comparative literature collected by the European Trade Union Institute. The phenomenon was particularly intense during the years of austerity, when unions responded with successive mobilizations to the reforms demanded of the country.
But even in the most extreme European case, the strikes took place in a context of legislative activity. Parliament was the place where cuts were discussed and where measures were finally approved. The strike sought to condition that process.
It is an important difference compared to Spain: the union pressure was then exerted on a fully operational legislative power, not on a Cortes already dissolved.
Portugal: a strike during the processing of the Budgets
The Portuguese strike of November 2011 perhaps offers an even clearer comparison. The trade unions called the strike against the measures included in the 2012 Budgets and against the Government's austerity policies. The parliamentary calendar and the union calendar were directly connected.
Parliament had to pronounce on the public accounts. The strike aimed precisely to exert pressure on those who had to make that decision.
There was, therefore, no temporary break that occurs in Spain in 2026: first the parliamentary rejection of the decrees; then, the dissolution of the Cortes; and finally, the call for a general strike during the electoral process.
France: the closest precedent, but without a general strike
The French case of 2024 is the one that most closely resembles the current Spanish scenario for a specific reason: there was parliamentary dissolution and an electoral campaign immediately afterwards.
Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly on June 9, 2024, and called for legislative elections on June 30 and July 7. During the following weeks, large mobilizations occurred against the possibility of a victory for the National Rally. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets, and different social and political organizations called for mobilization during the campaign.
But France does not offer the same union precedent. Those mobilizations were fundamentally political and social protests. There was no national general strike comparable to the one that CCOO and UGT are preparing now in Spain.
The French comparison allows, precisely, to delineate the Spanish uniqueness: there is indeed a recent precedent of a dissolved Parliament, elections underway, and political mobilization in the streets; there is no equivalent precedent of a national general strike called in that scenario.
Slovenia: a strike on election day, but of a sectoral nature
The European comparison even offers a case in which a strike coincided with elections. In Slovenia, in 2004, a union organization of journalists called for a strike that began on the same day as the general elections.
However, it cannot be considered an equivalent to the Spanish case either. It was not a national general strike against a government policy, but a sectoral conflict related to working conditions and collective bargaining.
It is another example of the difference between strike and elections and the assumption posed now in Spain: the former has precedents; the combination of a national general strike, a dissolved Parliament, and political conflict during the campaign is much more exceptional.
Italy and other countries: political strikes with functioning institutions
The same pattern appears in other countries. Italy has witnessed general strikes against fiscal, budgetary, or labor reforms. One of the references collected in the comparative documentation is the general strike of November 30, 2004, against the budget project and the fiscal measures of the Government.
Again, the common element is the same: the mobilization occurred while the institutions were functioning and decisions remained open to political negotiation.
The Parliament was not an absent actor. On the contrary: it was one of the main recipients of union pressure.
The first European strike also arose with the Parliaments open
On November 14, 2012, one of the most relevant episodes of transnational union mobilization during the crisis occurred. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, and Malta participated in the first European-scale strike, while there were solidarity mobilizations in France.
That episode is particularly useful for comparison because it occurred at the moment of maximum pressure from austerity policies. European unions used the strike to respond to specific decisions of national governments and to the economic policies that were being debated and applied.
Nor was the scenario that now appears in Spain raised at that time: a country with the Cortes dissolved and a general strike called in the midst of an electoral race.
The academic literature: a strike can have electoral effect
The institutional uniqueness does not mean that a strike during a campaign cannot have precedents in terms of political impact. The academic literature has precisely studied the relationship between general strikes and electoral behavior.
A study on 16 countries in Western Europe between 1980 and 2012 concluded that general strikes can have electoral consequences and that this effect can be particularly relevant when the mobilization occurs close to elections.
Strikes can modify voters' perceptions of government responsibility and increase the electoral cost of certain policies.
That is to say, the strike can not only be an instrument to try to modify a government decision. When elections are near, it can also become an element of electoral competition.
The difference is that, in the usual scenario, the strike occurs while the government is still under the ordinary control of Parliament. In Spain, the mobilization is raised when citizens are already called to decide who will occupy that Parliament after November 29.
The Cortes are dissolved, but not all parliamentary activity has disappeared
There is a constitutional precision that is essential to understand the scenario. The dissolution of the Cortes does not mean that any form of parliamentary activity disappears.
The Constitution maintains the Permanent Deputations of the Congress and the Senate during the period between legislatures. Article 78 assigns them certain functions, among them those related to the situations constitutionally provided for during the periods when the Chambers are not meeting.
Precisely through this mechanism, the Government intends to try to carry out the housing decrees that the Plenary of the Congress has rejected.
For this reason, talking about a Spain "without Parliament" would be imprecise. What exists is something different: the Cortes are dissolved, the ordinary activity of the Chambers has ended, the Permanent Deputations maintain the competencies assigned to them by the Constitution, and the country is already in an electoral process.
It is in this framework, and not in that of an ordinary legislature, where the general strike is proposed.
A scenario that finds no clear equivalent in Europe
The comparison allows for a conclusion: general strikes are a known tool in European democracies and have been used on numerous occasions to pressure Governments and Parliaments. There are also precedents of protests during electoral campaigns and strikes coinciding with elections.
But the pattern changes when all variables are crossed.
Greece had dozens of general strikes during the crisis, but with its Parliament functioning. Portugal called strikes against its budgets while they were being processed. Spain did the same during the reforms of 2010, 2012, and 2013. France experienced in 2024 an electoral campaign after the dissolution of its Assembly and large mobilizations in the streets, but not a comparable national general strike. Slovenia had a strike coinciding with elections, but it was sectoral and linked to a labor conflict.
None of these cases reproduces the scenario that is now opening in Spain.
For this reason, in terms of European comparison, Spain finds itself in a singular situation: a national general strike being prepared with the Cortes already dissolved, the electoral process underway, and after the Congress has rejected the measures that are at the center of the protest.
The exceptionality, therefore -they explain to DEMÓCRATA sources from the EU experts in this matter-, does not reside in the existence of a general strike nor in the fact that the unions intervene in a political conflict. Both things have a long European tradition. What is different is the moment: the union pressure comes when the legislature has ended and the next political decision is already in the hands of the voters.