A deregulation manifesto

Vox presented its Programme of Deregulation at its ordinary general assembly on Saturday, casting the country's thicket of rules as the cause of economic decline, industrial decay and social paralysis. The document, titled 'To the point! An easier life', identifies the primary, energy, industrial and housing sectors, the autonomous regional system and mass immigration as fields crippled by what the party calls 'hyperregulation'. The party estimates the annual cost of excessive bureaucracy at €90,000 million.

The plan demands a 'deep' review of all regulation and pledges that the measures already being put into practice in the three regional governments where Vox governs with the centre-right People's Party (PP), Extremadura, Aragón and Castilla y León, will form the backbone of an 'integral' deregulation architecture.

“We are going to bring out the chainsaw and the scissors and this will end quickly.”

Alejandro Nolasco, Vox Aragón president and regional vice-president with the deregulation portfolio, made the remark while detailing the fifteen requirements a farmer in his region must fulfil to register as a beneficiary of the family farming law.

Eight laws targeted for repeal

Vox marks eight national laws as priorities for outright repeal. Four of them relate to climate change or sustainable mobility. The list also includes the housing law, the labour reform, the waste and contaminated soil act and rules on customer services. Mandatory equality and LGTBI plans in companies are singled out as 'ideological bureaucracy disguised as progress'. The party argues that equality before the law is already guaranteed by the Constitution and that no business should be forced to certify its adherence to an 'agenda'. The mandatory daily working-hours record is dismissed as an 'absurd burden', while the compulsory digital-disconnection protocol is seen as unnecessary because working conditions should simply be agreed between employer and employee.

“Laws, born to embody order and make coexistence possible, have been strangled by contemporary regulatory hypertrophy and degenerated into a normative chaos that penalises initiative, hampers growth and condemns the future.”

'Priority national' and the push for centralisation

Beyond repeal, Vox wants to curb what it calls 'autonomic chaos' by reclaiming competences for the central state and passing harmonisation laws. The party wants a single environmental assessment per project, with fixed deadlines and penalties for delays. It also proposes an open-market law that would let goods and services circulate freely across Spain. A 'deregulation mailbox' would let any citizen flag a rule as redundant, while sectoral deregulation roundtables would convene business associations and professional bodies.

The party sets itself a one-in, three-out rule: for every new norm approved, three must be derogated. Crucially, the doctrine of positive administrative silence, assuming consent if officials fail to reply on time, would be applied broadly, with a single carve-out for immigration, nationality and residency procedures, where silence would never work in the applicant's favour.

Eye on Brussels

Vox's programme also takes aim at European Union norms. It demands the reform or abolition of a wide range of EU measures, from the Green Deal and sustainability directives to energy-efficiency rules and work-permit regulations for third-country nationals. Domestically, the party wants to accelerate investment in electricity networks, fast-track energy-storage and pumped-hydro projects, prioritise nuclear energy and improve water management through inter-basin connections.