Governing by Evidence, Reforming Through Politics: Lessons from Spain's Pension Reform
hosted by Professor
Benedicta Marzinotto
Jose Fernandez-Albertos
Secretary-General for National Policy, Office of the Prime Minister at Gobierno de España / Spanish Government
It has become commonplace to argue that the difficulty European political economies face in implementing reforms is one of the causes of political discontent across the continent, and a source of instability and policy uncertainty in the years ahead. The reasons for this apparent paralysis are well known: the costs of reform tend to be concentrated and immediate, its benefits diffuse and distant, and in fragmented, polarized democracies governments have strong incentives to avoid blame. Yet between 2021 and 2023, a minority coalition government in Spain passed a pension reform addressing both adequacy and long-term sustainability, while negotiating at three levels simultaneously: in Parliament, through social dialogue with business and unions, and with the European Union, as the reform was one of the key milestones of Spain's Recovery Plan. Drawing on my experience in the Spanish Government since 2020, I argue that evidence rarely settles reform conflicts, but it can structure them and help find solutions. I discuss the design choices behind the reform, including the shift from automatic adjustment toward review-and-correct mechanisms; the roles of social dialogue, the Toledo Pact, EU recovery-plan conditionality and independent evaluation by AIReF; and how the government dealt with competing projections and communicated uncertainty about demography and migration. Finally, I consider broader lessons for democracies facing long-horizon challenges and, on a more personal note, how academic research can be more useful to policymaking.
José Fernández-Albertos is a political scientist at the Institute for Policies and Public Goods at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). He holds a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University. His research focused on the political economy of welfare state and redistribution, the politics of economic monetary integration, and the consequences of financial crises. In 2020 he moved into government, first as an advisor in the Cabinet of the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, and then as Director General of Social Security Planning (2022–2024), where he took part in the design and negotiation of Spain's pension reform. He joined the Office of the Prime Minister in 2023, and currently serves as Secretary-General for National Policy.
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