The Spanish government is proposing a 10% increase in public sector salaries between 2025 and 2028.

Madrid / BarcelonaThe Spanish government makes a move in negotiations to raise public sector wages and proposes a salary increase. of 10% for the period 2025 - 2028According to statements made to the media by the UGT union this Wednesday, the Ministry of Public Administration and the main civil servants' unions met again this Wednesday to negotiate an increase in public sector salaries, and they intend to meet again on Thursday. However, the proposal from the ministry, headed by Óscar López (PSOE), has not convinced the unions due to its fine print. Specifically, the Ministry of Public Administration is proposing a cumulative increase of 10%, but between 2025 (when the increase should be retroactive, according to the unions) and 2026, it cannot exceed 4%. Thus, salaries would rise by 2% this year and another 2% next year. The remaining salary increase would be applied gradually starting in 2027. "For UGT, this percentage complicates the negotiations because purchasing power must be guaranteed," said Isabel Araque, general secretary of UGT Public Services, in statements to the media. Regarding the protests, Araque declined to say whether or not they would resume "out of good faith" and indicated that the union would wait to see what the Civil Service puts on the table at tomorrow's meeting. However, he reiterated that the unions "never" ruled out any scenario for protests. Meanwhile, CCOO considers the Spanish government's proposal "completely unacceptable" and states that it is an "insult" to public employees. The union asserted that it will only accept a salary proposal that guarantees the recovery of purchasing power and threatened to resume calling for a general strike in December "if there is no fair economic proposal." For its part, the CSIF union believes that this initial offer from the government "would not cover" the rise in prices, since year-on-year inflation was 3.1% up to October of this year. "The first two years of the agreement would mean a loss of purchasing power for public employees, and therefore we cannot accept it," insists CSIF, adding that, out of a sense of responsibility, they will continue negotiating with the Spanish government. "It must be taken into account that since 2022, the date of the last agreement, salaries have devalued by 8%, and since 2010, when the salary reduction occurred, with this year's cuts, the loss amounts to almost 20%," argues Miguel Borra from the union, "there is a spending cap, and therefore there is room to increase the offer." Although the Spanish government does not yet have a draft of the 2026 national budget on the table, for public sector workers this cannot be an impediment to agreeing on a new salary increase. Civil servants have been pressing for days and even They all threatened to call a general strikeAs CCOO had already pointed out, part of the discontent stemmed from the ministry's dismissal of the possibility of increasing public sector salaries in 2025, citing the lack of a state budget. The current agreement was implemented in 2022 and expired in December 2024. Since then, salaries have been frozen.

The negotiations

According to the ministry, Wednesday's meeting with the main public sector unions (CCOO, UGT, and CSIF) served to begin addressing the issue of compensation and "progress was made in designing the new salary framework" until 2028. The ministry stated in a press release that they will meet again this Thursday at noon. The administration explained that the framework agreement being negotiated aims to provide "higher quality public services and improve the relationship between citizens and the administration." They also highlighted that previous meetings have made progress on public employment, streamlining and improving selection processes, internal promotion and professional development, workforce planning, citizen services, equality and non-discrimination, and working conditions. The last wage agreement between the Spanish government and the unions was in effect between 2022 and 2024, and stipulated pay increases with both a fixed and a variable component. This agreement allowed for an increase in civil servants' salaries of around 10% during this period (when it was signed, in the fall of 2022, inflation was at 10%, driven by the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine), which entailed an expenditure of approximately 13 billion euros.