The first deputy vice president and Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, has said that if the PSOE continues in Government, pensions will continue to be updated in line with the IPC. At the same time, he has acknowledged that the level of spending in the system requires periodic reviews to determine whether adjustments are necessary, either on the revenue side or on the spending side.
These statements were made this Friday during a four-way economic debate on the program 'La Sexta', in which the Minister of Social Rights and Consumption, Pablo Bustinduy (Frente Amplio); the PP's deputy secretary of Finance, Juan Bravo; and Vox's economic spokesperson, José María Figaredo, also took part.
Throughout the debate, both Cuerpo and Bustinduy reiterated their commitment to ensure that pensions are updated with inflation. In the same line, Bravo and Figaredo also positioned themselves, although the latter warned that, in his view, right now they are "unsustainable", largely due to the impact of immigration.
The safeguard clause and control of spending
In his intervention, Juan Bravo brought up one of the provisions included in the latest reform of the pensions system approved in 2023.
This is the so-called safeguard clause, a mechanism that checks whether pension spending deviates from what was agreed with the European Commission and that requires activating adjustments if the disbursement exceeds 13.3% of GDP. The review of this limit is carried out by the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), which performs this assessment every three years.
During the face-to-face, Bravo showed a placard with the text of that clause and asked Carlos Cuerpo whether it is correct and, if the time came, whether adjustment measures could be put in place to ensure pension payments.
Cuerpo replied that "What the law guarantees (...) is the sustainability of pensions. Every three years you have to see if we are doing the job properly." However, the economic vice president emphasized that the AIReF has already carried out an initial analysis and has not considered it necessary to apply additional measures because the spending threshold set has not been exceeded.
"The AIReF has checked that pensions are being managed well, that we are growing enough for it to be said that it is not necessary to take any measures thanks to the fact that this government does the job properly," he concluded.