The President of the Government and PSOE candidate for re-election, Pedro Sánchez, has announced this Sunday, November 15, the creation of a new legal figure called "friendship union", one of the main novelties of the electoral program with which the socialists will be contesting the general elections on November 29. The proposal aims for two or more people who maintain a friendship relationship and take care of each other to be able to obtain legal recognition, even if they are not married, are not in a domestic partnership, or have family ties.
The announcement was made during the rally held at the Polideportivo Los Cantos de Alcorcón (Madrid), where Sánchez defended the need to adapt legislation to the different forms of cohabitation and to the support networks that exist outside traditional families. "There are people we want to not have to be our partner, who decide to take care of us and deserve to have rights and recognition in our Civil Code", the socialist leader explained, presenting the initiative as an expansion of the rights linked to care.
The idea is to legally recognize friendship ties when there is a commitment to support and care between people, so that they can access certain protections that are currently associated with marriage, domestic partnerships, or family relationships. However, the PSOE has not yet specified all the conditions for constituting these unions or the complete catalog of rights that would come with them.
What exactly is a friendship union and what would it be for
The friendship union would be a figure recognized by the Civil Code to provide legal protection for people who maintain a care relationship without needing to be romantically involved or related by kinship. Its purpose is for the legal system to take into account situations in which friends play a role equivalent to that of family members in day-to-day care, especially when a person is ill or needs help.
For example, it could benefit two friends who share a home and look after each other’s needs, or a person who has a close friend as their main support rather than their relatives. It could also be relevant for those who live alone and have a network of friends that provides them with assistance during an illness.
The fundamental difference with respect to a domestic partnership is that it would not be necessary to maintain a romantic relationship. The bond would be based on friendship and on a commitment to provide care, although it is still pending determining what requirements would allow that relationship to be accredited and whether it would be mandatory to live in the same home.
The proposal also responds to an increasingly visible social reality: not all people have a partner or family members available to take care of them. In some cases, it is friends, housemates, or people from the nearby circle who assume that responsibility. The PSOE argues that these relationships can have legal consequences, rather than depending exclusively on informal agreements.
What rights friends could have: work permits and care
One of the main objectives of the initiative is to expand the recognition of care in the workplace. According to the explanations circulated after the Alcorcón rally, the new figure would make it possible to recognize rights such as the paid leave to care for a sick friend or in the event of a death, provided that the conditions set by future regulation are met.
At present, the article 37.3 of the Workers’ Statute recognizes paid leave of five days for serious accident or illness, hospitalization, or surgical intervention requiring home rest for certain relatives. This right also extends to other non-relatives who live with the worker in the same home and need their effective care.
This means that Spanish law already allows being absent from work to care for a friend or a housemate in certain circumstances, provided that there is shared living and that legal requirements are met. Therefore, the socialist proposal would not start from a total absence of protection, but could expand recognition to other friendship relationships and facilitate access to rights that today are limited to certain situations.
The situation is different in the event of a death. The Workers’ Statute provides, as a general rule, two days of paid leave for the death of a spouse, domestic partner or relatives up to the second degree, extendable when it is necessary to travel. There is no equivalent general leave for the death of a friend, although the collective agreement may establish improvements.
Precisely, the extension of sick leave or death leave permissions to people bound by a legally recognized friendship relationship is one of the possibilities opened up by the initiative. However, it is still necessary to know whether these rights would apply only to those who live together or whether they would also benefit friends who reside at different addresses.
Will it be necessary to register as a civil partner? The precedent of Catalonia
Sánchez has stated during his appearance that the proposal is inspired by cohabitation arrangements that already exist in the civil law of communities such as Catalonia and Navarre. In the Catalan case, the Civil Code regulates the so-called "cohabitation relationships of mutual assistance", a formula that allows the legal recognition of cohabitation between people who share expenses, domestic tasks, or care without maintaining a romantic relationship.
The articles 240-1 and following of the Civil Code of Catalonia establish that these relationships may be constituted between two or more adult persons who live together in a stable manner and share domestic or economic responsibilities. When there is no family relationship, the maximum number of members is four. The regulations also allow the relationship to be formalized by public deed or recognized after two years of cohabitation.
This regulation includes certain protections regarding housing and property relations. For example, it allows agreements on how expenses are to be distributed and includes some rights to remain in the home when one of the cohabitants dies, always within the terms provided by law.
However, these are the conditions of the Catalan regulation, not the requirements announced by the PSOE for its future friendship union. The party has not yet explained whether it will use a similar model, whether it will require registration in a registry, or whether it will allow relationships to be formalized between people who do not share a home.
It has also not been confirmed that the new figure will be fully equated with marriage or civil partnerships in matters such as inheritances, taxation, or survivor pensions. These rights are subject to specific regulations and their possible extension would require additional legal changes.
Is it the same as the "chosen family" proposed by Ada Colau?
The proposal of the PSOE coincides with another initiative presented this very Sunday by Frente Amplio, the coalition led by Ada Colau, which proposes legally recognizing the so-called "chosen family".
The formation proposes incorporating into the Law of Families a mechanism that would allow voluntarily designating people from the affected emotional environment, such as friends or nearby neighbors, so that they can access paid work leave related to illness, hospitalization, dependency, or the raising of minors.
"How many times have you felt that your friend is your family?", Colau has said when presenting the initiative. According to Frente Amplio, the objective is to protect those who turn to their friendships to receive care, especially when they do not have a close family network.
Although both proposals share the intention of recognizing care networks outside kinship, they are not exactly identical in how they are worded. The PSOE proposes incorporating a new union figure into the Civil Code, while Frente Amplio proposes recognizing the free designation of affective bonds and care through the Law of Families, without necessarily requiring cohabitation.
The coincidence of both initiatives places the recognition of care among friends as one of the issues in the electoral debate of 29N.
When would the union of friendship enter into force and what remains to be specified
For now, the union of friendship is an electoral promise and not a state legal figure that can be requested. Its implementation would depend on whether the PSOE could drive the corresponding legislative reform after the elections and on whether this obtained the necessary parliamentary backing.
Among the pending aspects are the requirements to constitute the union, the need or not to cohabit, the number of people who could be part of it, the mechanisms to accredit care, and the specific rights that the Administration would recognize. It will also have to be clarified whether the figure would entail reciprocal obligations and how it would end when the people decided to end their support relationship.
The initiative represents an expansion of the concept of family protection toward other personal relationships, but it does not mean that two friends can automatically obtain all the rights of a marriage simply by declaring themselves united. For that to happen, it would be necessary to expressly establish the legal consequences of the new figure.
In short, the PSOE wants friendship to be able to have legal recognition when there is a care relationship, with special attention to work leave and to the protection of those who support each other without being a couple or family members. The final scope of the measure, however, will depend on the regulation that is approved if the proposal ends up becoming law.