In June 2024, after several regional defeats and with an unbearable noise around him, Yolanda Díaz He resigned as a leading leader. Although the passing step was evident, the second vice president tried to make an optimistic reading. He thought that was going to serve him to recalculate the route, focus on the management of the Ministry of Labor and, from there, continue to claim as a figure of relevance within the left. It is similar to what happened to the labor reform in 2022, that the measure ended up promoting it for the electoral cycle of the following year. His effort into this strategy is now such that even the minority partners of his coalition complain that he only focuses on his plot, which only pays attention to their measures.
Now, more than a year after that movement, it could be said that this strategy is doing water. The reason has analyzed the productivity of all the ministries of the Government this 2025, telling how many measures the Council of Ministers have led, and the conclusion is resounding: Diaz’s portfolio is one of the least initiatives takes forward from the entire government. Thus, it will be very difficult to boast management.
The Ministry of Labor is the fifth less productive of the entire Executive. This year has only led to the Council of Ministers a draft and bill, the reduction of the working day that he did not even approve. Nor has he approved any Royal Decree-Law that has then had to validate Congress. In total, it has only approved 23 minor initiatives and only exceeds the ministries of Social rights (22), Equality (14), Youth (11) and Dwelling (9).
The reform of the failed working day is the only great project that the Ministry of Labor has approached throughout the year. The vice president tried to turn the measure into the adding flag for this legislature and took the draft to the Council of Ministers in February. Later, in May, he already presented the bill completed and his intention was to discuss it in Congress before the summer break. However, the Executive’s socialist wing slowed his claims due to the patent lack of support and the debate ended up postponing to September.
Díaz could have kept that reform of the working day in a drawer. The government already does with numerous bills for which the accounts do not come out. He could have waited to have the numbers more in his favor, but it was his only asset and the electoral mode in which the policy has been installed does not allow much room for maneuver. If I had delayed it, an advance of the elections would kill the initiative and Díaz does not have precisely too many measures that can presume.
In the end, he took him to Congress without the support and knocked him down in September, thus signing his greatest political defeat since she is Minister of Labor, since January 2020. The second vice president has several times on the reform of the working day she wants convert that “defeat into a political victory”which seeks to reverse the situation so that they are the parties that have voted against the reduction of day, which have to assume the consequences before the citizenship. Regardless of whether or not, it is one of the few stings that you have left, because there are hardly any more measures in the bedroom to make profitable, seen the low productivity of your ministry. Another option is to expect the elections to be delayed enough to propose something new.
Last week it was tried to comfort a royal decree on the record of day, but it is a lower measure and does not even have to go through Congress. So far this year, Díaz has approved three reais decrees, 17 agreements and a report. They are all small initiatives that concern the development of regulations or merely administrative issues and that are the power of the minister on duty. Although there concentrates most of its activity, it has not been very prolific on this front. Just to compare, the Ministry of Presidency has approved 110 reais decrees in 2025 and 112 agreements. Transport, eight reais decrees and 205 agreements. That is, Díaz does not even get ahead even measures that only depend on it.
Although adding to the government with issues such as Loopforcing the socialists to harden their position, the truth is that right now Díaz cannot boast political or management results. Moncloa sources recognize that the vice president has lost much political weight in the government in recent months. As soon as he leaves in the press conferences to the Council of Ministers, mainly because he has no measures to sell, but also because the socialists have led it on purpose, to see that he does not have great support or real political power, he informs Javier Portillo.
This weakness also seems to be taking its toll when reorder the space to the left of the PSOE that, in principle, she wants to lead again. Training within adding are already leaving the fold and looking for their own profile, such as when the deputy of Compromís He voted against the migration assignment to Catalonia, or as the deputy of Chuntawhich requested early elections if there are no budgets.
Possible alternatives are also emerging in that space, such as Antonio MaílloUnited Left leader, who speaks of the need for new leadership and is gaining weight. Over to add, we can have been established in a strategy to complicate the life of the government to have a position of force in future negotiations.
However, there are still no elections formally in sight and Moncloa remains a very powerful speaker. There Díaz could have new opportunities. But, right now, his is not even the ministry of adding with more projection. Culture, directed by Ernest Urtasunhave taken later initiatives than work, 36. Anyway, they are almost all minors. Something more incidence has healing, Mónica García. The Ministry has approved 46 initiatives. Of these, there is a bill (that of the State Public Health Agency) and two preliminary projects (that of measures against smoking and that of medicines and health products).
There are still many outcomes to solve before knowing what will happen to that space to the left of the PSOE. At the moment, the situation in Gaza seems to have given rise to Díaz to focus on a more ideological speech, trying to press the Executive’s socialist wing daily, and less in management matters. Who knows if that will serve to alleviate the ministerial failure.