Feijóo vows conservative overhaul if he wins Spain’s Nov. 29 election

People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Friday pledged to carry out sweeping right-wing reforms on social issues in Spain, promising to rewrite abortion and euthanasia laws if he wins the Nov. 29 election. “My main objective is to get [Prime Minister Pedro] Sánchez out of government and start a new chapter in my country,” Feijóo said in an interview on Spain’s Cadena SER radio network, vowing to undo eight years of Socialist rule. The center-right leader, whose PP has led polls for years, confirmed he would consider forming a governing coalition with far-right Vox if election results required it. “I cannot rule out doing what the Spanish people tell me,” Feijóo said, acknowledging the polls which currently indicate the PP would need Vox’s support to secure a parliamentary majority. “If they tell me to provide stability with [Vox], I will do so.” If such a partnership is needed, Vox is expected to demand a deputy prime minister post and at least one ministry, as it has in regional coalitions with the PP. POLITICO’s Madrid Playbook this week reported on speculation that the far-right party could be given the agriculture portfolio, but Feijóo said he had held no formal talks on allocating ministries. During the interview, the conservative leader vowed to revise Spain’s abortion law, which was amended in 2023 to allow minors over 16 to terminate pregnancies without parental consent. Feijóo said he was keen to involve legal guardians in the decision, arguing that “many 16-year-old girls who have their parents’ support will not want to have an abortion.” It’s unclear whether that measure would satisfy Vox, which has sought to completely repeal the current abortion law and rejects abortion as a legal right. The PP leader also pledged to restrict access to euthanasia, which Spain legalized in 2021 for adults with serious, incurable illnesses or severe, chronic and disabling conditions under strict safeguards. “Spain must become the country where it is easiest to sustain life,” he said. Feijóo also promised to scrap the standalone Equality Ministry as part of a broader effort to reduce the size of government. He insisted the move did not undermine his commitment to feminism. “I grew up in a house with more women than men. How could I think that a woman doesn’t have the same rights as a man?” he said. Feijóo declined to explicitly commit to further increase the minimum wage, which has risen eight times under Sánchez, from €735 a month in 2018 to €1,221 today. His goal, he said, was to raise “the average wage, so that people’s purchasing power improves.”