Fátima Báñez says new part-time national insurance regulations will improve social benefits for over 2.5 million people

In her speech in the Lower House of Parliament on Thursday morning, the Minister for Employment and Social Security, Fátima Báñez, said, during the debate on the ratification of a Royal Decree for the protection of part-time workers, that the new national insurance regulations for part-time workers "will improve social benefits for over 2.5 million people".

This Royal Decree-Law enshrines the agreement reached to improve the conditions for access to social protection by part-time workers signed on 31 July 2013 by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security, the CCOO and UGT trade union organisations, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations and the Spanish Confederation of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in a legal instrument with the status of a law.


The new regulation, which has received widespread social support, modifies the current model to recognise periods of contributions by part-time workers in terms of their access to various benefits under the Social Security system, in accordance with rulings handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Constitutional Court.

Fátima Báñez believes that this Royal Decree goes beyond a literal application of the rulings and reflects an important agreement - which could be described as historic - on the protection of part-time workers and those with intermittent employment contracts. "This regulation", continued the minister, "puts an end to a system that required part-time workers - the vast majority of them women - to have worked for proportionally longer than other workers on a full-time contract in order to gain access to a contributory retirement pension".

The Royal Decree ratified on Thursday by the Lower House of Parliament proposes increased flexibility for the required qualification period of 15 years to receive a contributory pension so it is no longer necessary to demonstrate the equivalent of 15 years worked on a full-time basis, which previously required the payment of national insurance contributions over many more years on a part-time basis.

The Minister for Employment and Social Security explained that the new regulations will be applicable to benefits from the Social Security system that, prior to the entry into force of the Royal Decree, would have been denied due to a failure to meet the minimum contribution period as well as to benefits whose applications are currently being processed.
Important social agreement
In her speech, Fátima Báñez highlighted the purpose of this new regulation stemming from the agreement with social stakeholders and parliamentary groups, placing particular emphasis on the provision of suitable coverage for all those people carrying on a labour or professional activity and the upholding of the principles of contributory nature, proportionality and equity that characterise the Spanish National Insurance system.

The Minister for Employment and Social Security explained how the legal vacuum caused by the judicial rulings led the Government of Spain to bring the social stakeholders together and examine the situation of these workers, with agreements being reached at the first meetings on the principles of equality, contributory nature, conservation, legality and solidarit.