I ran out of milk for my cup of tea last Sunday afternoon, and I was forced to take a long trek to find a newspaper and stationery store which bent the law to provide a litre of milk or a loaf of bread to hungry shoppers.

The controversial matter of when shops should or should not open has flared up again in Spain, causing a confrontation between the government, shopkeepers and consumers. An anarchistic attitude grew up in the 1980s after the restrictions of 40 years of Franco dictatorship - department stores and large super and hypermarkets flaunted the laws to open at weekends and some as late as midnight.

Many smaller local shops could not compete and were forced out of business. After vociforous protests and strikes by small shopkeepers, the government stepped in to try to establish order forcing them to close on Sundays and public holidays, except on a limited number of Sundays and in tourist areas. The final decision was left to the regional governments who interpreted the 1996 law to suit themselves. Thus, Madrid stores are allowed to open on 12 Sundays a year, although only large supermarkets and department stores do so, while those in Cantabria on 10 Sundays or Galicia and Castilla for only nine.

But last month the Popular Party government decided to introduce new legislation allowing greater freedom for shops to decide on their opening hours, and the various traders and their organisations are up in arms.

"We are almost ruined as it is. This will be the final straw," complained Mariano Gomez who has run a small grocery shop in a working class area of Madrid for the past 30 years. "We have a lot of elderly people living around here and they can't walk to the large supermarkets and nor do they want to buy half a dozen yogurts or a wrapped half kilo of cheese. We can sell them in the small quantities they want. If people like me are forced to close, what will they do?"

As in many other European countries, the past 25 years has seen a dramatic transformation of the shopping scene in Spain. In 1976, 86 per cent of grocery shopping was carried out in the traditional local shops, only 8 per cent in supermarkets and 6 per cent in hypermarkets.

Now 52 per cent has been taken over by supermarkets and 31 per cent in the 306 huge shopping hypermakets which surround many of the major cities, leaving space of only 17 per cent for the local shops.

The new legislation has pleased some organisations such as the Consumers Association (UCE), which welcomed the greater freedom it would bring. "It is a necessary step. Over recent years there has been a massive increase in the number of women at the workplace and it is hard for them to fit in their household shopping in their working hours," said Mr Enrique Garcia a UCE official. El Corte Ingles, the large department store and supermarket chain found across Spain, is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday to Saturday in summer and until 9.30 p.m. in winter, and other supermarkets are nor far behind.

On the opposite side of the battle line are the organisations representing the small and medium-sized businesses. Mr Miguel Angel Fraile, spokesman for the Spanish Trade Confederation with 600,000 members and vice-president of Eurocommerce which represents traders across Europe, is adamant that the opening hours are already ample.

He is worried that the virtual extinction of the small shopkeeper could take Spain along the same road as France where fewer than half a dozen large chains monopolise 85 per cent of trading.

"Sunday is traditionally a day to spend with the family, and we don't want this to end. I can't go to my lawyer or my dentist on a Sunday, why should I go to the supermarket or buy a pair of shoes?" asks Mr Fraile. "Sunday opening would be hard for the shop workers. Many of them have children and the nurseries are closed on Sundays, public transport would have to be increased to carry them to work. "The government says that liberalising opening hours will help to bring down inflation, but we believe that it would increase prices because operating costs would be higher."

Prof Ignacio Cruz Roche, who has carried out a study on the liberalisation of shopping hours in Europe, agrees with Mr Fraile's organisation. "Sunday opening would add 15 per cent to operating costs and the increased sales would not cover those costs," he said recently. Moreover, the trade unions contradict those who claim that increased trading hours would bring more jobs. It is estimated that 18,821 small shops have disappeared in Madrid over the past four years at a cost of 55,000 jobs.

The mood is becoming as hot as the temperatures of the searing Madrid summer and there is no sign of any cooling down. But another old Spanish tradition is that of the long summer break, and protests must wait until the workers return from their holidays. The traders' associations are planning to stage a nationwide general strike to close all shops - but not until October.