MADRID, Spain – The Madrid tenants’ union has become one of the main drivers of the housing protests following the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, who died on Wednesday 7 October aged 87 at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, with the organisation placing her case at the centre of its demands and of the campaign for the so-called Maricarmen decree, after the elderly woman herself had asked from hospital for the protests to continue. Her death comes as the union maintains a structure of activity combining membership fees and donations with collaborations and external support for certain projects and networks, LA GACETA reported.
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One of the documented institutional supports comes from the Ministry of Culture of Pedro Sánchez’s government, with the department announcing in March the rehabilitation and future cession of two Tabacalera warehouses with a combined surface of 800 square metres for the use of Lavapiés collectives, with the Madrid union among the entities participating in Remontada Tabacalera. Culture will assume the works from its budget, although the formal cession will be made to CSA La Tabacalera and the spaces will have shared use, meaning the agreement does not constitute an exclusive handover of the premises to the union.
The connection with European funds is established through the European Action Coalition, a housing rights network of which the Madrid organisation is part, with CAN Europe including this coalition among the beneficiaries of a fund integrated into Funding Fairer Futures, an initiative co-financed by the European Union. The EAC also receives support from the Guerrilla Foundation, which states it finances its organisational structure, meetings, publications and certain travel and accommodation. These sources accredit aid to the coalition but do not detail transfers or amounts received by the Madrid union.
The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation offers another concrete link, with its Madrid office publishing the Tenant Organising Manual authored by the union, whose credits, printed in November 2023, identify the German Federal Foreign Office as financier. There is therefore German public funding of a publication of the organisation itself, although the document does not break down the cost or allow determining whether there were payments to the union or whether the resources went directly to editorial production.
The documented relationship with George Soros’s Open Society network lies in sessions organised in December 2020 by the Reina Sofía Museum and La Laboratoria, with Open Society Initiative for Europe appearing among the collaborating entities alongside the Foundation for Arts Initiatives and Rosa Luxemburg, and with Rebeca Tolosa taking part in the programme as a member of the Madrid union. The documentation accredits that participation in a meeting backed by Open Society but not a grant to the union or fees paid to its representative.
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Added to these collaborations is the Coop57 Foundation, which promoted a resistance fund for rent strikes by the Madrid and Catalan unions, fed through donations and destined for legal and organisational expenses. The Madrid union, for its part, maintains on its transparency page that it receives no subsidies and that its main income comes from membership fees, in addition to paid services and donations. The information located allows identifying support for publications, spaces and networks in which it participates but does not allow reconstructing complete accounts or attributing to all those actors the financing of its ordinary activity.
