The Spanish government says Spain’s reliance on temporary jobs makes the country a “far away planet” from the rest of the European Union.

About a quarter of the workforce relies on such employment contracts, far more than in any other member state. Youth and women are mainly affected.

So when the country’s Communist Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz reached a long-sought goal meets the As businesses and unions set labor rules last month — focusing on measures to curb the use of temporary contracts — the government isn’t alone in cheering the breakthrough on a highly contentious and consequential issue.

“On a symbolic level, since the transition to democracy, we have hardly seen anything like this: a communist minister makes a deal with business and labor,” said Mariam Martinez, a political scientist at the Autonomous University of Madrid. – said Bas Kunan.

Now comes the hard part: getting parliament to pass the measure into law and make real improvements to Spain’s dysfunctional labor market.

change – a component reform In return, Spain has pledged to receive 70 billion euros in grants from the European Union’s coronavirus recovery fund – which needs parliamentary support until February 7. Failure to approve reforms could affect future funding in Brussels.

But so far there are no votes. The opposition BJP has said it will oppose the measure, which has taken effect temporarily, while the nationalist and regional parties on which the few leftist governments rely have yet to win.

Meanwhile, the real challenge awaits: repairing Spain’s labor market, the country’s biggest economic black spot. Unemployment in Spain is double the EU average at 14%, the highest in the EU.

“The situation in parliament shows where Spain is now,” Martínez-Bascuñán said. “The far right is on the rise, so the BJP won’t support reforms for fear of looking too centrist, and the pro-government bloc is still vulnerable, even though it has pushed a lot of legislation.”

The reforms have their roots in a coalition agreement two years ago between the socialists and Diaz’s smaller radical-left Podemos group. The parties agreed to undo changes made by the conservative government in 2012 to reduce layoff payments, and to prioritize company-specific wage and condition negotiations over industry-wide negotiations.

Many economists say the 2012 measures helped companies recover from the financial crisis into an export-led recovery, but the left sees them as exacerbating economic inequality.

Over the years, alliance partners Discord On how to rewrite the rules, socialists are keen keep business as usual. Bank of Spain urge The government retains these measures to avoid harming the country’s competitiveness.

During the pandemic, planned changes to labor rules are incorporated into the recovery agenda agreed with the EU. Because Brussels has called for negotiations with business and labour organisations on the changes, CEOThe Spanish Employers’ Federation played a decisive role in the negotiations. It signed on to the reform last month despite dissenting groups in its ranks including carmakers, agri-industrial and business organizations from the country’s main economic powerhouses, Madrid and Catalonia.

CEOE’s leadership said the deal “consolidates the current labor model”.This agreement is Temporary contract, of which 17 million were signed last year, compared with just 2 million fixed-term contracts. But it allows them to use it for training, temporary replacements and work limited to 90 days.

The CEOE added that while industry-wide negotiations will now lead to a wage agreement with unions, it believes the more important conditional negotiations will remain business-specific.

A simpler analysis was offered by Spain’s former conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who told the ABC newspaper that the government deal “leaves [previous] Where is the labor reform”.

But the current leadership of the PP has said it will vote against any changes to the measure, which it says has brought millions of jobs to Spain over the past decade.

The government also described the changes as a paradigm shift. “The previous model was based on instability and wage depreciation,” an official said. “This reform will restore workers’ rights without harming businesses.”

Officials expressed confidence they would win enough support from Spain’s smaller parties to translate the measures into law. But they were reluctant to reopen a lengthy negotiated text that has been included in Spain’s list of commitments to the EU.

Alicia Colonier, chief economist at Madrid-based private bank Singular Bank, said: “It is true that this measure largely maintains the PP’s labour reforms while focusing on reducing temporary contracts if it works. , it will be very positive.” .

Coronil said the 2012 reforms helped Spain add 500,000 jobs in the year before the pandemic and may have reduced unemployment during the pandemic.

But she said the pandemic “has also shown risks to the Spanish economy – companies are often too small to expand, and employment policies are inadequate. The most important thing is to address these issues.”