The Federation of Associations of High State Civil Administration (Fedeca) sees a “legal fraud” in the salary agreement between the government and the unions UGT and CSIF, which expects an 11% increase from 2025 to 2028. This is how the president of this association of high state officials, Anna Erkorica, defined it on Monday, since the agreement exceeds the limits of the legislature. The head of the Union of Labor and Social Security Inspectors considered that “the commitment from 2025 to 2028 represents a fraud of the law because we are talking about what is beyond the legislative authority.”
“What the government should adhere to is the legislature we have now, until 2027,” Ercurica added. “To talk about the future in 2028 when we don’t know what the outlook will be is a fraud of the law, in our opinion. It should be protected by Congress.” The last agreement for officials’ salaries, signed in 2022, was extended until 2024. This agreement also exceeded the limit that was expected for the legislative authority, which initially expired at the end of 2023.
Aside from this discrepancy over the duration of the agreement, Fedica values the increases “positively”, but at the same time it has a fundamental objection: it criticizes that it does not take into account real inflation, but rather expectations of price development.
A cumulative increase of 11% is expected (up to 11.4% taking into account the impact on bonuses, according to union calculations). The increase for 2025 will be 2.5%, and will be applied retroactively from January 1. In January 2026, salaries will rise by another 1.5%. With the addition of the two increases, at the beginning of next year the salary increase will be a fixed 4%. A 0.5% variable linked to the 2026 CPI being equal to or greater than 1.5% in that year is added. In this case, this half point will be paid during the first quarter of 2027 retroactively to January 1, 2026 and will be deducted from the 2027 increase, which will be set for that year at 4.5% (5% if the half point is not rolled over to the prior year). In 2028, the remaining 2% will be collected.
Ercoreca believes that this increase “will lead to nothing” if the real CPI is not taken into account. This means that your association believes that potential increases associated with price development will not serve to compensate for unexpected increases in the CPI. “The annual increases that are being made do not take into account the real consumer price index,” Ercurica criticized. Thus, Fedeca proposes a revaluation similar to that of pensions, which takes into account each year’s accumulated inflation, rather than a forecast like that envisaged in the agreement between officials and the government.
“If this is not in line with the increase in the CPI, it will not be a real increase. It will mean a loss of purchasing power. We must take into account the volatility of energy prices and the rise in housing prices, which affects young people,” Ercurica commented, before highlighting the difficulties faced by civil servants who move to cities such as Madrid or Barcelona (where housing prices are higher than average) when starting their careers. “We positively appreciate the fact that there is a path for increases, but we want them to be linked to the real CPI,” Erkorica summed up.
The Fedeca president also celebrated that “waiting periods for public job offers have decreased,” a delay that Ercurica believes, when it continues, leads to “inefficiency” in public administration.