Status: approved

I've just started wearing glasses for reading and working on the computer, and they are making such a difference it's as if I've been fitted with a new pair of eyes. However, I had to take them off and clean the lenses on Tuesday when I read a quote from Elma Saiz, Spain's minister for inclusion, social security and migration. It was so utterly unlike anything one would expect to see from Pedro Sánchez's government that I assumed there was a problem with the new eyewear.

I put my glasses back on - and, yes, there it still was. Speaking of the government's commendable plan to regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants, Saiz said it was an attempt to "break the bureaucratic barriers of the past". A Socialist-led government endorsing the removal of cumbersome red tape to address a key social issue! You understand my surprise. If Sánchez applied the same approach to Spain's housing crisis he could make real progress.

Foreign-born workers have played a crucial role in Spain's economic expansion over recent years. But by living here illegally, they are prone to exploitation and have limited employment options. This undermines opportunities for Spaniards, too: if a company can hire an illegal worker from Latin America at less than the minimum wage, instead of spending more on a Spaniard, they'll usually choose the first option. Everyone loses.

Regularisation programmes are relatively common in the EU. Between 1996 and 2008, 43 were put in place by both left- and right-wing governments in over a dozen nations. During the three years from 2019 to 2022, foreign workers accounted for half of the eurozone's labour force growth. Even Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni, usually branded as one of the EU's most anti-migrant leaders, is submitting to the stats: last summer, she promised to issue 500,000 new work permits for non-EU nationals between 2026 and 2028, taking the total given out by her centre-right government to almost a million.

Despite having approved more regularisation programmes than any other Spanish party, the PP has decided to oppose this one. Alberto Núñez Feijóo claims that it's another attempt by Sánchez to distract attention from the corruption scandals affecting this government. But even if that's true, so what? The motive for passing a piece of legislation is one thing, its efficacy quite another.

Feijóo should take inspiration from the town of Villamalea in Albacete, whose 4,200 residents represent 32 countries. Last October, a town council motion urging the national government to regularise undocumented migrants secured unanimous backing from the PP to United Left.

"We didn't even debate it, we were all onboard right away," said Villamalea's PP mayor José Núñez Pérez. If I read something like that coming from his party's national leader, who seems to thrive off polarisation, I'll know I need new glasses.