PSOE accuses PP of wanting to privatise pensions after Muñoz says system will collapse
The PSOE says Ester Muñoz's remarks that the pension system will collapse expose the PP's real plan, while Alberto Núñez Feijóo promises to index pensions to inflation ahead of the 29 November general election.
Muñoz's warning on the system
Ester Muñoz, the PP's parliamentary spokeswoman, said on Tuesday, 13 October, in an interview on the Quórum podcast that the public pension system will not hold up in its current form. She argued that the system was designed for a population pyramid that no longer exists, and that workers now entering the labour market earn too little to fund the pensions of the baby boomers, the generation that includes her own parents. Her team told laSexta that the podcast had been recorded in late September. Muñoz said those retirees deserve what they were promised, but that the model 'has to be changed because it does not work'.
- Ester Muñoz says on the Quórum podcast that the system will collapse
- Feijóo promises to revalue pensions by the CPI at a rally in Huesca
- PSOE accuses the PP of planning to privatise pensions
The system, as it stands at the moment, is going to collapse.
Feijóo's pledge to index pensions
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP leader, struck a different note the same day. In an interview with esRadio and at a pre-election rally in Huesca on Tuesday, 13 October, he said a PP government would update pensions in line with the consumer price index (IPC) and would 'in no case' question the public pension system. He pledged to guarantee the viability of the system for young people but did not explain how. At the Huesca rally he put his position this way.
Whoever pays contributions has a pension, and we will guarantee the update in line with the consumer price index.
Juan Bravo, the PP's deputy secretary for finance, said in a social media video that the party had 'always' backed pension revaluation. Other reporting pointed out that the PP had voted against revaluation inside omnibus decrees. Vox, which shares regional governments with the PP in five regions, has described the public system as a 'zombie' and favours a mixed capitalisation model with individual pensions. Santiago Abascal, the Vox leader, has denied any intention to privatise pensions.
Socialists accuse the PP of privatisation
The PSOE responded in a party communiqué that the PP was 'beginning to show its true pension model', one based on 'cutting and destroying rights'. The party said the first people asked to make sacrifices would be pensioners. Rebeca Torró, the PSOE's organisation secretary, wrote on X that the PP's position amounts to a plan to privatise the system.
When the PP says the pension system needs reform, it means privatising it, like its partners in Vox.
The PSOE argued that the Government of Pedro Sánchez has guaranteed pension increases by law and raised the reserve fund from 5,000 million euros in 2018 to 20,000 million euros now. It also accused Feijóo of presenting as an election promise a measure already in law, and said the PP had not backed pension increases in Congress for eight years.
Spending and the 2050 outlook
Social Security data cited by EL PAÍS show contributory pension spending reached 189,598 million euros in 2025. That is up 6.2% from 178,500 million euros in 2024 and 13.1% from 168,000 million euros in 2023. The Government places the impact of pension spending at 15.3% of GDP at its peak in 2050.
- 2023
- 168000 million euros
- 2024
- 178500 million euros
- 2025
- 189598 million euros
What happens next
The general election is set for 29 November, and the Government is weighing how to handle the pension revaluation for 2027 alongside the early election. Pensions are expected to dominate the closing weeks of the campaign. Each party will have to explain in its manifesto how it would close the structural deficit without losing older voters.
