Spain's weekly pre-election handouts: Sánchez turns Tuesdays into a social spending ritual

Pedro Sánchez's government has turned the Tuesdays leading up to Spain's 29 November elections into a weekly series of social policy announcements. The question is why these measures were not approved during the eight years he has been in power.

There is a scene that repeats itself in almost every election campaign, and these days it has a name of its own at Moncloa, the Spanish prime minister's residence: social Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, until the vote on **29 November**, the Council of Ministers approves a package of measures designed to improve the lives of Spaniards. The first instalment came with the extension of survivor's pension access to unmarried couples with children who were neither married nor registered as civil partners, improved benefits for those caring for seriously ill children, and increased allowances for certain orphans of victims of gender-based violence.

The headline measure of the week, however, was another one. On Monday, the prime minister announced **45 million euros** to launch seven university residence hall projects that will create around **2,000 places** in a first phase, aimed at students, lecturers and researchers. The official argument is that the housing shortage is undermining the opportunities of students who have to move away to study.

## Eight years to discover what was already known

Pedro Sánchez has governed since **2018**. Eight years is a long time: long enough to learn to play the violin, to build a house with your own hands, or to have a child and watch them make their first communion. In theory, it is also long enough to notice that there are students who need somewhere to live, and that if rents are prohibitive, studying away from home becomes a luxury. The figure that puts the announcement in context is the number of university students studying away from their home city: **677,390**, according to data published by Vozpópuli. Against that figure, the 2,000 places in the first phase are a drop in a glass that has been overflowing for years.

The same applies to the other measures. Allowing a person to care for their sick child without Social Security withdrawing their benefit because the child has reached a certain age is a reasonable solution. That this solution arrives in October **2026**, weeks before the elections, and not before, is what raises questions. The situations now being corrected did not appear yesterday afternoon.

## The survivor's pension and the electoral calendar

The extension of the survivor's pension to unmarried couples with children affects a group that had spent years in an administrative limbo. These were families that existed, paid social security contributions and provided care, but did not fit the formal requirement. The government has now resolved this. The question is not whether the measure is good, but why the approval calendar coincides with the electoral calendar.

From Moncloa they explain that these social Tuesdays are meant to contrast the government's policies with the austerity cuts made by **Rajoy** and, they claim, those **Feijóo** would make if he ever governs. The framework has its rhetorical logic: after eight years in power, they fight what the man who governed fourteen years ago did, and warn against what the man who has not yet governed might do. Between one thing and the other, the space left for dealing with what should have been done during their own term is rather narrow.

## Governing until the last day is not the problem

There is nothing irregular about a government continuing to govern as an election approaches. Nor would it make sense to freeze a necessary benefit because the vote is a few weeks away. That is not the criticism. The criticism is presenting as an extraordinary display of social sensitivity what should have been the ordinary work of the ministries throughout the entire legislature.

The weekly instalment format adds an element that borders on melodrama. This is not a government presenting a set of measures because it has finished preparing them; it is a government announcing in advance that it will hand out its initiatives in serial form until voting day. This week, the survivor's pension. Next week, who knows. With each instalment, a demonstration of love for the citizen, and if the collection is a success, the final gift arrives on **29 November**.

The question hanging in the air is simple and has two sides. If all these measures were necessary, why were they not approved earlier? And if they could wait, why is it suddenly so important to push them through before the elections? Both possibilities have their irony. The first exposes eight years of neglect. The second turns the BOE, Spain's official state gazette, into a campaign catalogue.