Spain's main opposition People's Party (PP) on Tuesday presented an election manifesto promising to cut taxes, tighten borders, impose stricter conditions on development aid and slow climate timetables ahead of an election on November 29.
The pledges come from the conservative party that opinion polls show ahead of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialists, but which would likely need an alliance with the far-right, anti-immigration Vox party to be able to govern. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo presented the programme, called "Reconstrucción Nacional" (National Reconstruction), in Madrid on Tuesday, describing it as a national political project built around repairing the state, regenerating democracy, reunifying the nation and restoring national ambition.
On immigration, the PP would ban "mass and indiscriminate regularisation" of migrants — a direct challenge to Sánchez's move to grant legal status to 500,000 people. It would set annual quotas for work visas in certain sectors, restricted to migrants from countries that "cooperate on returns and on controlling irregular immigration", and put the Armed Forces in support of border control when national security requires it. The party would also ban Islamic face veils in public spaces, limit certain welfare benefits to those with "real, lasting and verifiable ties" to Spain, and regulate the loss of nationality of naturalised Spanish citizens convicted of crimes "against life, sexual freedom, national security, the integrity of the State or the international community".
The programme would also repeal Spain's democratic memory law and its trans law, replacing the memory law with a "norma de concordia", and would count the "conceived but unborn" when calculating family benefits, while making no reference to repealing Spain's abortion law. People intercepted after crossing illegally would be identified within seven days and returned rapidly, and the party has pledged a 650 million euro reactivation programme for Ceuta and Melilla covering 2027-2032.
On climate, the manifesto would halt "impossible" climate target timetables and withdraw obligations that "harm competitiveness, industry or employment", while still calling decarbonisation a "key objective" for Europe. The PP would extend the licences of five nuclear plants and immediately eliminate the 7% tax on electricity production.
On taxes and spending, the party promises to cut VAT on basic food items for as long as "the current crisis of inflation and purchasing power persists", cut income tax for people on the minimum wage to 0%, increase army pay and troop numbers, and scrap three rules for each new regulation created. Internationally, it promises to resume dialogue with Britain on the EU-Gibraltar deal, "recover the transatlantic link" with the United States and work towards a "balanced and strong relationship" avoiding trade wars, and to maintain "political, economic, military and humanitarian support" for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia "for as long as its aggression lasts".
These are campaign commitments, not measures already in force, and would require electoral support followed by legislative or budgetary action. The election on November 29 comes as Spain holds a general strike over the housing crisis and weeks after the deadly high-speed train crash near Urda that killed 69 people.
