The Spanish government, already with the election campaign underway, has held an extraordinary council of ministers to take a “first step” to revalue pensions starting in 2027, although the inflation figures for the month of November are not yet available.

This means that it is not yet possible to know exactly how much they will rise on average, since the calculation is made with the confirmed inflationary data, which will be known on December 15th.

The spokesperson for the state executive herself, Elma Saiz, has admitted that the effective measure will be taken later because a rule with the rank of law is needed for its approval, but when questioned by journalists she clarified that the increase will be between 3% and 4% according to her estimates. What has the government done, then, today?

It has reached an agreement to urgently process the new decree-law to make this pension increase possible and in this way it has been able to make an early first announcement of its intentions on the first day of the election campaign.

It is Pedro Sánchez’s simulation: the PSOE’s strategy to visualize its priorities if it returns to govern and to deploy its electoral program in the middle of the campaign while it still has the Moncloa.

This extraordinary council of ministers in the middle of the campaign will not be the last: it is expected that next Friday there will be another one beyond the ordinary one, which will be held on Tuesday, and the one that has already been held this week.

That is to say, in two weeks, the Moncloa will bring together all the ministers up to four times to make decisions, a way of also multiplying the informative impacts from now until 29-N.

Furthermore, to do this, Sánchez has a significant advantage that he did not have before the early calling of the elections: the permanent deputation, the mini-Parliament that operates in Congress during the election period and in which, unlike the full chamber, there is a left-wing majority without depending on Junts.

This is what has allowed Congress to approve the housing decree law this week, which extends rents for two years and stops evictions for vulnerable families, which the plenary session rejected in October. Next Wednesday, November 18, another permanent deputation is scheduled, which still has to define its agenda, to be able to validate measures already approved by the council of ministers.

And, according to parliamentary sources, another meeting of this body is still expected before voting on November 29. Once again, a way to multiply the informative impacts with social measures, which is what the PSOE wants to talk about in this election campaign.

Changes to the pension system After announcing the “first step” to revalue pensions, the government spokesperson, Elma Saiz, also took the opportunity to review all the measures that the Spanish government has taken regarding pensions throughout the term, noting that it has acted to guarantee the “purchasing power” of pensioners throughout the mandate, in addition to incentivizing the extension of working life

through “active retirement.” She assured that since the PSOE arrived in the executive branch in 2018, retirement pensions have increased by 28%.

In fact, they claim that for eight years the average pension in Spain has increased by 44.5%: if in 2018 it was 1,090.70 euros, in September 2026 it was 1,576.10. She also highlighted the more structural reforms, such as the creation of new modalities to try to extend the retirement age, which has gone from 64.4 years in 2019 to 65.4 years in 2026.

And she assured that the delay in retirement has increased and early retirement has decreased slightly, with the intention of making the system more sustainable.

At the same time, Saiz, who is also the head of the Ministry of Social Security, highlighted the increase in affiliation, which in the month of October reached 22.6 million people, and said that this allows 65% of pensions to be financed in Spain by people who work.

More judges and prosecutors On the other hand, the Minister of Justice and the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, has also announced the creation of 500 new judge positions and 200 prosecutor positions to reinforce the efficiency of the justice system. “In one year we have created up to 1,000 judge positions,” noted Bolaños, who recalled that during Mariano Rajoy's entire term, only 300 were created.

Regarding the prosecution service, he asserted that his government has created more positions than during the terms of Rajoy and José María Aznar combined.