The Popular Party has presented its electoral program full of economic proposals. The commitment to call elections if they incur two extensions of the General State Budgets stands out. The current Executive has not been able to approve Budgets throughout the legislature despite the fact that the Constitution includes the obligation to present them each year. The party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo says that it will make “the necessary reforms so that a second consecutive extension causes the dissolution of the Cortes and the calling of elections.”
The program subtly enters the debate that has returned to the fore after the Urda train accident. “Managers of public companies will be chosen for their experience, merit and capacity, not for political affinity,” explains the PP. Likewise, within a chapter that promises to reduce the political structure, the plan ensures that "all the State's business interests will be reviewed" to sell those that "do not respond to a proven public or strategic interest." The public holding company, SEPI, currently has 10% of Telefónica; 27.99% of Indra or 20% of Redeia, among others. In an interview with the newspaper Expansión, Núñez Feijóo said he did not understand the reasons for the State to have a stake in Telefónica.
These are the main measures in other subjects:
Pensions
Despite some references to the difficulties of the pension system – spokesperson Ester Muñoz said that it was “collapsed” – the program does not include any major reform and the increase in these benefits will continue to be linked to the CPI. It does say that there will be deductions in personal income tax to promote active retirement. The program of 249 measures has some hidden along with the message: “Stay tuned to the campaign to find out about this new measure.” One of these claims is in the pensions section.
Housing
The PP proposes reducing the deadlines for granting urban planning licenses to a maximum of three months and facilitating the conversion of offices and commercial premises into affordable housing with the aim of building one million homes. The proposal includes the repeal of the Housing Law that was approved in 2023. In his opinion, the elimination of stressed areas and the rental price reference index will allow legal certainty to be recovered among owners and increase supply. In the rental market, it proposes personal income tax deductions for tenants based on their income and tax incentives for owners who extend contracts for three more years and limit rent increases to percentages lower than the CPI.
To facilitate access to housing, the party proposes a package of fiscal and financial incentives aimed especially at those under 40 years of age. Among the measures are reducing VAT from 10% to 4% on the purchase of the first habitual home, allowing the payment to be split in installments and offering public guarantees of up to 20% of the value of the property to cover the down payment on the mortgage. It also includes an agreement with the autonomous communities to reduce the Property Transfer Tax, with the possibility of splitting the payment. In addition, it proposes extending from two to four years the period to reinvest the money obtained from the sale of the primary home in the purchase of another and thus maintain the personal income tax exemption on capital gains.
It also proposes creating the “young home piggy bank”, which will be a savings account with a tax deduction of 20% of the contributions, up to a maximum of 2,000 euros per year for the purchase of their first home, which it had already proposed on previous occasions. The contribution limit would be up to 40,000 euros and the beneficiaries could access a guarantee for an equivalent amount.
The program also contemplates applying a reduced VAT of 4% to rehabilitation works on habitual residences and granting aid to recover damaged or empty properties. Added to these measures are those aimed at combating squatting. The PP proposes to approve a law that allows judicial evictions to be carried out within 48 hours, prevent the registration of squatters and exempt owners from paying taxes and basic supplies, such as electricity and water, for the duration of the squatter.
Taxes
The party led by Núñez Feijóo promises a large tax reduction focused on income tax (IRPF). The PP assures that it will raise the personal minimum tax, currently at 5,500 euros per taxpayer in general, and that it will lower the rates in the lowest brackets. At the same time, it promises to automatically adjust the tax so that minimum wage recipients do not pay taxes and to deflate the tax to adapt it to the rise in prices. “We will deflate the rate and update the main parameters of the tax to prevent inflation from being used again as a hidden tax increase.”
Also in personal income tax, the training proposes a progressive reduction in the tax for young workers and self-employed workers during the first four years of their working life. The idea is to set a 100% reduction in the first year, 75% in the second, 50% in the third and 25% in the fourth.
The program of measures also proposes important changes in other tax figures. As long as the current inflation crisis persists, the PP proposes a 0% VAT on basic foods, including meat, fish and preserves. In business taxation, the program promises reductions in corporate tax for companies that invest in machinery, equipment, digitalization or cybersecurity. Regarding taxes on wealth, the training plans to give “equivalent tax treatment to the different forms of savings as long as the money remains invested.”
sick leave
Alberto Núñez Feijóo has criticized the current system and use of sick leave on several occasions. On paper, the PP proposes a model for sick leave that combines greater protection for the most serious cases with reinforced control over other temporary disabilities. The program proposes to increase the benefit of workers with cancer, serious or long-term illnesses, as well as self-employed workers with severe pathologies, to 100% of the regulatory base. It also contemplates subsidizing their contributions and facilitating the adaptation of their jobs to their clinical cases.
For common sick leave, however, the party focuses on combating absenteeism by giving more weight to mutual insurance companies in the evaluation of disabilities and facilitating the exchange of information with Social Security. In any case, this is something already agreed upon in the social dialogue for trauma pathologies that the PP communities, except the Balearic Islands and Cantabria, are not applying. It also proposes introducing economic incentives (without specifying whether they will be tax deductions or bonuses) to reward companies that reduce sick leave among their workers.
Regional financing
In its program, the training promises to reform the financing system, which has been waiting to be renewed for more than a decade, injecting more resources. He assures that it will be a priority task – “we will convene the Conference of Presidents at the beginning of the legislature to lay the foundations for a new model” – that it will be carried out “multilaterally” and that there will be a shielding of the model: no territory of the common regime will emerge from it and there will be no singular schemes negotiated bilaterally. While the new scheme is not ready, the PP undertakes to launch a transitional fund with State resources.
It also guarantees that there will be no fragmentation of the Tax Agency and that the single Social Security fund will be legally protected.
Regarding the regional debt, it rules out the forgiveness proposed by the current Government, but is committed to a restructuring, an approach that was already included in the 2017 Commission of Experts. Along the same lines, it promises to “gradually eliminate” extraordinary liquidity mechanisms such as the FLA, as the communities go out to the markets. It is also committed to respecting the fiscal autonomy of communities so that they can decide whether to lower or raise their taxes.
It also commits to a new local financing system, in which councils that provide land and affordable housing will be rewarded, and that councils can use their savings. He assures that he will reform the waste law, help the most indebted municipalities, the smallest ones and the island and outermost territories.
Energy
The program promises to reverse the closure schedule of the Almaraz, Ascó, Vandellós, Cofrentes and Trillo nuclear power plants. To this end, it is proposed to process the extension of its useful life during the first 100 days of the Government, as long as it has the approval of the Nuclear Safety Council. The proposal involves reformulating the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan to accommodate a combination of nuclear energy, renewables, storage and backup technologies, which would compete on equal terms in auctions and in access to aid. It also contemplates approving a national nuclear energy strategy and participating in European initiatives to develop advanced reactors and small modular reactors.
In parallel, the document promises to reduce the electricity bill by eliminating the 7% tax on electricity production (a tax that has already been in the process of definitive disappearance since last June). It also proposes creating a Single Social Rate for vulnerable households, which would replace and expand the current electricity and thermal bonuses. In terms of infrastructure, the plan commits to unlocking access to the network for new industrial and technological projects within 18 months and to strengthening the security of the electrical system to avoid new blackouts.
Infrastructure
The program proposes a National Infrastructure Plan that mobilizes more than 300,000 million euros between the public and private sectors in the next 15 years, aimed at "promoting highways and road networks, high speed and suburban trains, and hydraulic and energy infrastructure." The text places special emphasis on rail transport and high speed, announcing a renewal of the oldest tracks and trains and intensifying maintenance, starting with the high-speed corridor in Andalusia. The PP also assures that it will act in the Cercanías and Rodalies networks and will accelerate the pending sections of the large railway corridors.
The party assures that it will deploy a conservation program for the more than 26,500 kilometers of state roads, improve access to ports and saturation at airports and promote the deployment of 5G and the implementation of charging points. Within the National Infrastructure Plan, it projects a national water pact that will mobilize up to 40,000 million until 2030.
