The Great Recession and the 15-M Movement
The collapse of a housing bubble throws a quarter of Spain's workforce out of work, young people occupy the squares, and the two-party system breaks apart.
- Lessons from the Economic Crisis in Spain — Sebastián Royo, Palgrave Macmillan (2013)
- Spain: A History — Raymond Carr (ed.), Oxford University Press (2000)
- Catalan separatist Puigdemont to return to Spain after warrant lifted — Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera (2026)
Spain’s boom of the 2000s rested on cheap credit and construction; at its height the country was building more homes than France, Germany and Italy combined. When the bubble burst in 2008, building stopped, regional savings banks collapsed and unemployment soared, peaking at around 27% in early 2013, with more than half of young people out of work. In 2012 Spain accepted a eurozone credit line of up to €100 billion to rescue its banks, and governments imposed deep cuts. Hundreds of thousands of families faced eviction, and many young graduates emigrated.
- Lessons from the Economic Crisis in Spain — Sebastián Royo, Palgrave Macmillan (2013)
On 15 May 2011 protesters camped in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and squares across the country, the indignados or 15-M movement, with slogans like “They don’t represent us”. Out of it came anti-eviction campaigns, new mayors such as Barcelona’s Ada Colau, and the party Podemos (2014). In the 2015 election the old two-party system fractured, and Spanish politics has been fragmented ever since.
- Lessons from the Economic Crisis in Spain — Sebastián Royo, Palgrave Macmillan (2013)
- Spain: A History — Raymond Carr (ed.), Oxford University Press (2000)
Why it matters today
A generation that came of age in the crisis still faces insecure jobs and unaffordable housing. The protests broke the PSOE–PP duopoly, bringing in Podemos and Ciudadanos and later Vox, and made coalition and minority government normal. Housing has become the defining issue for younger Spaniards, and a source of instability for governments.
The crisis and the austerity that followed coincided with the surge of the independence movement from 2010–12, and helped turn a long-running dispute over money and powers into a mass movement.