Democracia 21: what Miriam González proposes for Spain and how the radical centre would answer

On 10 October 2026, in Madrid, Miriam González Durántez launched Democracia 21, the party that grows out of her España Mejor platform. It is standing in Spain's general election on 29 November in two constituencies, Madrid and Barcelona, and wants to contest every province after that. Its mission, she said, fits into two words: lo arreglo, "I'll fix it". Find a problem and fix it, without using it to set people against each other.

We're interested for a specific reason. González said she hasn't asked her team to place themselves on the left or the right, or to sign up to a detailed programme. She has asked them for judgement and a set of shared values. She guesses some lean right, some lean left, and says this is the moment to come together. That is very close to what we call the radical centre: go to the root of each problem and combine what each tradition gets right. So we'll read the speech as we would any party's, problem by problem, saying what we share, what's missing and how we'd do it. radical centre is independent of all parties and will stay that way.

Young people and the social lift

The speech opens with young people, who, González says, have come to loathe parties, and some of whom now doubt democracy itself. Then comes her own story: granddaughter of farmers from Olmedo, daughter of the first in their families to go to university, a public grant that took her to study in Bruges. That same girl today, she says, would struggle: the grant wouldn't stretch and housing would rule out any life plan. Restoring social mobility is, for her, Spain's number one priority.

We agree, and it's a good place to start because it makes you look at everything else from there. Social mobility depends on schools, on housing, on wages and on nobody needing a patron in a party to get on. That thread runs through the whole speech. We'd add a tool we've already argued for: a capital endowment at birth, a small starting asset for every young person, which turns equal opportunity into something you can actually hold.

Clean-up: the strongest part of the speech

This is the heart of the project. González argues that Spain fails to make sensible policy because the system is geared to parties placing their own people, and that this holds back even growth. Her list is long and concrete: oversight bodies free of politicians and former politicians, merit and ability in every appointment, promotion and dismissal, an immediate 90% cut in political advisers, a General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) depoliticised from parties and from judges' associations alike, a public prosecutor answerable to Parliament, specialist corruption courts, an end to aforamientos (the special courts that try MPs and senior officials) even if it takes a constitutional amendment, lower subsidies for parties and their foundations, a two-term limit and MPs back in their constituencies every fortnight.

Recent events back the diagnosis. The CGPJ spent more than five years with an expired mandate, until the Socialists and the People's Party signed its renewal in Brussels on 25 June 2024, with a European Commission vice-president in the room. When it takes Brussels to renew the body that governs the judges, something is badly designed.

The radical centre would add two things. First, independence and accountability belong together. Francis Fukuyama puts it as three pieces that have to grow at once: a capable state, the rule of law and democratic accountability. An independent body that answers to nobody becomes one more power that can block, and Spain already suffers plenty from what Marc Dunkelman calls vetocracy. So every depoliticised institution needs a clear mandate, appointments by broad majorities, public evaluation and a Parliament that can question it.

Second, some measures work better as a permanent rule than as a single blow. Cutting 90% of advisers in one day makes a headline; setting in law how many there can be, publishing who they are and requiring merit for technical posts lasts longer. And MPs in their constituencies depends on the electoral system: with closed provincial party lists, an MP owes the seat to the party. If we want them listening to their neighbours, we need to change who they owe the seat to. We'll go into that next week.

Housing

On housing, González lands where Jorge Galindo and our article on Spain's housing crisis land: Spain is short of homes because land isn't zoned and serviced, permits drag on for years and a lot of regulation pushes up the cost per square metre. She rejects the fight between tenants and landlords and proposes a national neighbourhood-building plan, backed by cross-party agreements and ten years of legal certainty. That is exactly what housing policy needs: a horizon longer than one parliament.

Two proposals deserve a serious look. She wants to scrap every housing tax for under-35s for as long as a young person earning €1,300 can't find a home for €350 at most. The aim is right. The risk is well known: in a market with very little supply, a tax cut for buyers can partly end up in the seller's asking price. We'd target it at new or protected housing, or pair it with what opens up renting fastest, such as public insurance against unpaid rent for every tenant. She also wants Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo to go to Brussels together so that some €10 billion of unspent EU recovery funds can go into a sovereign fund for affordable housing. The figure is hers and we'll check it. A stable fund for affordable housing strikes us as one of the best ideas in the speech.

Schools, enterprise and public services

On education, González holds that excellence and equality go together: more support for those who fall behind and more room for those who can go further. She wants to measure results, look after teachers, build technology in and make degrees more flexible, with practical experience at every stage. We agree, and we'd add a habit: pilot reforms, measure them, and only then roll them out.

For growth, she wants starting a business to stop being an obstacle course, being self-employed to stop meaning big-company obligations with second-class protection, a systematic review of outdated and duplicated rules, and a digital state you can reach in one click, keeping face-to-face service for those who need it. She wants to ease the tax burden on a squeezed middle class and, at the same time, well-designed public services that stop running on the goodwill of doctors, teachers and police officers. That's the tension that has to be settled with numbers: paying for good services while asking less of the middle class takes higher productivity, closed loopholes and cuts to wasteful spending, and it's worth saying how much each one brings in.

Migration and Europe

On migration, González puts together two ideas that rarely meet in Spanish politics: immigration is an asset and a competitive advantage for Spain, xenophobic rhetoric has to go, and the state has to be in control of who comes in, how, when and when they leave. For us that's textbook synthesis. On Europe she is categorical: contribute to it instead of attacking it, because for Spain it is existential.

What comes next

Over the next five weeks we'll take each problem in this speech and write the radical-centre answer, with data and sources: cleaning up institutions (14 to 20 October), housing, social mobility and education, productivity and an agile state, and migration and Europe, through to 17 November. With what the left gets right, what the right gets right and what fits in neither.