Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras | 9 mayo 2025.

CCOO RESOLUTION on the 23 July general elections

    In a meeting held on 25 July, the CCOO Confederal Executive Committee analysed the result of the general election held on 23 July and published this resolution

    26/07/2023.
    CCOO Resolution general elections

    CCOO Resolution general elections

    CCOO assesses the results of the general elections positively. First of all in terms of turnout, more than four percentage points higher than that recorded in November 2019. We want to show our appreciation to the workers of Correos (Postal Services) who have been able to manage a large increase in postal voting, and to claim the central role of public services, also for the proper development of democratic processes.

    The elections were held after an anomalous legislature, as a result of its exceptional circumstances (pandemic, confinement and subsequent crisis, invasion of Ukraine, inflationary process), its political characterisation as "illegitimate" by part of the opposition, the blockage in the renewal of one of the three branches of government (the judiciary) and the media belligerence against the parties of the government coalition and their top leaders. In this context, the results obtained by all the forces that in one way or another facilitated the previous legislature are praiseworthy. Spain is a diverse, heterogeneous country, but with very high levels of coexistence and tolerance, and it has reacted to the evident risk of a breakdown of this coexistence and even of some basic rights of citizenship and equality, which some governmental options openly raised in the regional and municipal electoral processes.

    General elections in the Spanish legal system are elections to elect the legislative branch: the Congress and the Senate. It is unquestionable that the most voted candidates were those of the Partido Popular, and we congratulate their candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on the result. However, it is no less true that now the issue is to obtain a parliamentary majority in order to succeed in the investiture of a President of the Government to form a subsequent Executive, a claim that only the PSOE candidate and current President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, seems to be in a position to achieve.

    It should be noted that in this sense the so-called "investiture bloc" has won the elections in terms of both seats and votes (a difference of more than 700,000 votes, not including Junts per Catalunya in either bloc). This is all pending the counting of the foreign vote, which will obviously change the total number of votes and eventually the number of seats. We urge all political forces to be responsible and farsighted in facilitating the investiture of a president of the Government, at a time when it would be foolhardy as a country to block the re-establishment of a majority for the investiture.

    From this point on, CCOO urges the configuration of a progressive majority that assumes programmatic commitments to the great challenges facing our country: the need to consolidate and develop the strategic bets of the last legislature, derived in large part from the agreements reached in the framework of the social concertation. All of this must be developed within the framework of the definition within the EU of the new fiscal and governance rules, the redefinition of the Stability and Growth Pact and the development of the European Pillar of Social Rights. We need a government in Spain that is firmly committed to deepening European fiscal integration and that rejects a return to the framework of accelerated austerity, which could strangle our growth and the very processes of economic modernisation.

    Seizing the opportunities for reindustrialisation linked to the energy transition and the digitalisation of production processes, as well as economic and environmental sustainability, should be the main banner of the coming years, together with the reconstruction of a social contract for the 21st century.

    The Spanish elections took place in a European context in which the gradual irruption of extreme right-wing forces reaching government meant (and means) a certain risk for the European project, and certainly for a deepening of its integration. The election results in Spain have removed that possibility in our country. The collapse of Vox is undoubtedly the best news of the day, not only for Spain, of course, but also for the European project itself. The fourth largest economy in the Eurozone will not be in the hands of those who deny the need for energy, climate or equality policies, and yearn for the old authoritarian nationalism. We are especially grateful for the involvement and presence of ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch with the Spanish trade unions calling for the need for a progressive government.

    Finally, we would like to acknowledge the work of the people who have been at the polling stations, all the workers involved in the electoral process in some way, and the members of CCOO for their awareness of the important moment in Spain and for acting accordingly.

      •