The Government of Spain extends social protection to families and facilitates work-life balance

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

The Council of Ministers has approved the preliminary draft of the Law on Families, based on four pillars: the extension of social protection to families and parenting support; the guarantee of the right to a work-life balance; the full legal recognition of the different types of families; and the protection of the rights of children and adolescents.

The Minister for Social Rights and Agenda 2030, Ione Belarra, has stated that with this regulation the government is catering to the needs of citizens and all families, as it provides a response "to central problems in the daily lives of millions of people in our country".

Belarra considers it extremely difficult in Spain today for parents to balance their work and personal lives, often depending on schools, after-school activities and the help of grandparents. She also stressed that there is a need to strengthen support for parenting, as surveys show that young women in Spain would like to have more children but do not do so because they cannot afford it. And a third pending issue is the legal recognition of "the different ways of being a family" so that all of them are equal in rights and equally protected by the law.

Social protection of families and parenting support

The Minister for Social Rights and Agenda 2030, Ione Belarra, during her speech at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

Among the measures included in the draft bill is the extension of the €100 per month child-rearing income to a greater number of families with children aged 0 to 3 years. Eligible beneficiaries include mothers who are receiving unemployment benefit, whether contributory or not, and those in part-time or temporary employment. "According to our calculations, this measure will benefit between 200,000 and 250,000 new mothers, which means that we have almost reached the ultimate goal of universalising this income", stressed Ione Belarra.

The protection for large families is extended to other families such as single-parent families with two or more children. Some of these measures are concerned with education - facilities for receiving a grant and the reduction or exemption of public fees and prices - and with public transport, with discounts ranging from 20% to 50%.

Families who are temporarily in a situation of single parenthood because one of the two parents is in hospital for more than one year or is in prison, or because only one of them has guardianship and custody, will be entitled to the same benefits.

The minister emphasised that the law recognises the subjective right to universal access to free, quality early care. To this effect, he announced that the General State Administration and the Regional Governments will develop a state framework of support for the first 1,000 days "to equalise opportunities at a key moment for children, the period from 0 to 3 years of age".

New work-life balance and care responsibilities

The regulation creates three types of care leave: one of five days a year paid leave to care for a relative up to the second degree or a cohabitant, with or without a family relationship; parental leave of eight weeks, which can be taken continuously or discontinuously and on a part-time or full-time basis, until the child reaches the age of 8 years; and leave for absence due to force majeure, which will be four paid days a year.

Parental leave will be phased in progressively, with six weeks in 2023 and eight weeks in 2024. Belarra explained that this leave will be of help to families, for example in non-school periods or during adaptation in nursery schools for 0-3-year-olds.

Legal recognition of different types of families

The law follows the line already taken by the government to equalise rights between married and unmarried couples. Last year, the widow's/widower's pension was reformed to include unmarried couples, and now these couples will also be able to take 15 days' leave when they are formed.

The new law will also create a new framework of recognition and protection for LGTBI families, for those who have a member with a disability, and for multiple, adoptive and foster families.

Protection of children's and adolescents' rights

The minister highlighted that the new law will protect the right of children and adolescents to information and participation in family diversity activities within the educational framework, which will prevent the application of the so-called 'parental pin' or other similar mechanisms, and will guarantee the free development of their personality.

Sustainable Mobility Act

The Minister for Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, during her speech at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

The Government has approved the Sustainable Mobility Bill, which will be sent to the Spanish Parliament for urgent parliamentary processing. The aim is for it to enter into force next year, thus fulfilling one of the commitments of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

The Minister for Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, highlighted the importance of the transport sector as an essential service for society - both passenger and freight transport - as an economic driving force - 4.5% of GDP and more than 800,000 jobs - and for its role in the fight against climate change, as it currently generates 27% of greenhouse gas emissions, five points more than the rest of the EU countries.

Right to accessible and inclusive mobility

For the first time, the regulation recognises that mobility is a right of all citizens and that it must be accessible and inclusive: "It must respond to the greater concentration of the population in large cities and peripheral areas, and to the mobility needs of rural areas and small towns, which also have to face major problems such as depopulation and ageing," said Raquel Sánchez.

One of the first objectives, included in the law, will be the reorganisation of regular road passenger transport by means of a new concession map. Although it is a state responsibility, the minister stressed that it will be "a joint effort with the communities and local entities to improve the service in all territories".

Coordination between the General State Administration, the regional governments and local entities will be intensified via the creation of the National Sustainable Mobility System, which will also include a civil society participation body.

For the purpose of making progress in the decarbonisation of transport, the regulation establishes some mandatory measures, such as that municipalities with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants should have simplified sustainable urban mobility plans, and other voluntary measures, such as a tax on the circulation of certain vehicles in Low Emission Zones.

Last, the law reflects the need to improve the quality of public investment and spending decisions in infrastructures in an attempt to reduce inefficiencies in management, which the minister has estimated at €8 billion in a decade, and promotes digitalisation, the use of open data and innovation.

Reform of the Law on Land and Urban Rehabilitation

The Executive has approved the draft bill for the amendment of the Consolidated Text of the Law on Land and Urban Rehabilitation, thereby opening up the hearing and public information process.

Under the current rule, urban development plans are considered to be regulations, so that any defect, whether material or purely formal, renders them null and void, without any remedial possibility. In turn, in numerous cases this decision has led to the cascading nullity of everything previously approved, including partial and special plans, reparcelling and licences, which has generated enormous legal uncertainty and enormous social and economic damage.

Minister Raquel Sánchez explained that the main objective of this modification is to prevent this situation from recurring due to easily rectified minor defects. To this end, the new law provides for the possibility of remedying them, making it easier for municipalities to deal with a planning modification, as the risk of it being declared null and void is reduced.

The reform of the law will also include modifications to simplify bureaucracy and improve the processing of authorisations for rehabilitation works that the Regional Governments and Cities and the Local entities must promote.

Dissemination of the 'Digital Kit' programme

The Government Spokesperson and Minister for Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, during her speech at the press conference after the Council of Ministers | Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

The Government, under the 'Digital Kit' programme, has regulated the direct award of subsidies to self-employed and entrepreneur associations to carry out dissemination and support activities among these groups and farmers and stockbreeders.

The Government Spokesperson and Minister for Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, has assured that the 'Digital Kit' initiative is one of the most widely accepted initiatives of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which is why it is now being extended to include collaboration with associations.

To date, €3 billion of EU funds have been made available to SMEs and the self-employed, more than half of which have already been implemented: "Specifically, more than 62,000 SMEs already have their digitalisation voucher, with the resulting employment that is being generated throughout the territory".

Reports on the General State Administration

The Council of Ministers has analysed two reports relating to the General State Administration (AGE) drafted by the Ministry of Territorial Policy in compliance with the regulations on the legal system of the state public sector.

The first refers to the 2021 activity of the cooperation bodies in which the General State Administration takes part,with representatives of the Administrations of the Communities, of the Cities of Ceuta and Melilla or, where appropriate, the Local Entities. Two Presidents' Conferences and 175 Sectoral Conferences were held that year, compared to 59 in 2017.

The Minister for Territorial Policy stated that "dialogue and co-governance are the hallmarks of the government" and thanked all the ministries for their involvement in this cooperation effort.

The second report, on the presence of the General State Administration in the Territory in 2021 shows that the 70 citizen attention points, including foreigners' offices and delegate offices, dealt with 2,693,560 queries. For their part, the Coordination and Violence against Women Units in the Government Delegations worked on more than 70,000 monitoring files on situations of gender-based violence and cases of particularly vulnerable risk.

The minister thanked the work of the nearly 6,000 AGE personnel in the territory who were active in 2021, assuring that the Executive is making efforts to strengthen the workforce, since between 2010 and 2020 there was a 28% staff reduction.

Non official translation