The Popular Party insists that its plan for pensions is to always revalue them with the CPI, but adds that its desire is to "reform" the system, to make it "sustainable" and thus guarantee future pensions. This was said, first, by Ester Muñoz, spokesperson for the Popular Party in Congress, earlier this week.
And this was stated this Thursday by Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, Muñoz's deputy spokesperson and favorite in the pools to accompany Alberto Núñez Feijóo on the electoral list for Madrid. During an interview on The Ana Rosa Program, the deputy acknowledged that pensions "of course are a delicate issue."
And he has detailed his party's plan: "We are going to defend pensions, update pensions, guarantee pensions, and we are going to reform the economic model so that it becomes sustainable." That is, raise pensions with the CPI, but at the same time undertake a review of the system, given the massive entry of boomers of retirement age, which will economically strain public coffers until 2050.
"I was here on May 27, 2010 when Zapatero announced that he was freezing pensions," Álvarez de Toledo detailed, "due to waste, debt and demagoguery," and those same waste, debt and demagogy are what the PP wants to stop now, in his opinion. "Pensioners are not going to allow themselves to be used to perpetuate an era of degradation," he concluded.
Feijóo: "Pensions are non-negotiable"
From Brussels, Feijóo has also been asked about pensions and his party's position: "Pensions are non-negotiable and it's over. Will pensions be updated according to the CPI? Without a doubt. Will we guarantee the public pension system, its viability? Without a doubt. And if there is someone who does not have credibility in terms of updating pensions, it is Mr. Sánchez. Mr. Sánchez froze pensions in Spain in 2011 with his favorable vote. Therefore So much so, that he comes to give lessons on the viability of freezing pensions. Mr. Sánchez is unqualified for that. I reiterate it again. The viability and updating of pensions in accordance with the CPI are non-negotiable.
The Government, for its part, is committed to approving and validating by decree the revaluation of pensions with the CPI in December, after the elections. Pedro Sánchez assured this this Thursday: "Our intention, of course, is for the pension reform to be approved before the end of the year." And he has shown his "perplexity" at the statements of PP and Vox about "that the distribution system is a system that is about to collapse."
"That is to say, the plan of both the right and the extreme right is to lie to pensioners until November 29 and then, if they get the sum and they can govern, cut pensioners' pensions," said the socialist candidate.
The first vice president and Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, has stated that the approval of the pension increase will be completed after the elections. "In my opinion, but that will have to be assessed by the State's lawyers, this update of pensions in the month of December is perfectly justified, it is of urgent need and general interest," he said in statements to TVE, where he indicated that the same will happen with the interprofessional minimum wage, which does not require a decree-law.
The shielding of the purchasing power of pensioners, more than an electoral proposal, is a legal mandate. This is established by the reform that was born from the Toledo Pact and which establishes that all pensions will be revalued at the beginning of each year in the percentage equivalent to the average value of the interannual variation rates of the CPI for the twelve months prior to December of the previous year.
Thus, the increase that will be applied from January 1, 2027 will be calculated based on the average inflation recorded between December 2025 and November 2026. And this information will be announced by the National Institute of Statistics in advance on November 27, two days before the elections. The Government may announce that same day, the last day of the electoral campaign, the revaluation for 9.5 million pensioners, but the INE will not confirm the final data until mid-December, so, legally, the Executive would have to wait until that date to activate the increase.
It must be remembered that the Government remains fully operational until the day the elections are held, but from that moment on it becomes operational and must be limited to the ordinary handling of public affairs. Although there would be the option for the acting Executive to approve a Royal Decree-Law on revaluation, motivating the extraordinary and urgent need to guarantee the legal right of pensioners to update their pensions from January 1.
