Zapatero courts Rajoy's support to push through pension reform

With 15 months to go until the next general election, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and opposition Popular Party (PP) leader Mariano Rajoy struck a rare conciliatory note Thursday in pledging to seek agreement on issues that will have repercussions for Spanish citizens long after both politicians have stepped down from public service.

The prime minister, during his summary of the year at the La Moncloa residence, spoke of the need to make extra effort to find common ground with the PP on reforms to the financial sector and the pensions system. Zapatero said he has spoken with "relative frequency" to his opposite number during this legislature and said that "if it is necessary to talk more, then I will talk more," in order to push ahead with the government's plans for pension reform.

Rajoy, meanwhile, pledged to "rise to the occasion" to ensure that 2011 "would not be a wasted year."

"I will work so that Spaniards will pay as little as possible in the future for the current situation," Rajoy said. The PP leader is firmly behind reform to Spain's financial system, above all the consolidation of savings banks. But while he broadly supports pension reform, Rajoy's bone of contention lies in the increase in retirement age from 65 to 67.

In the case of a prolongation of working life, Rajoy asserted it must be "with incentives from 65 years upward."

Zapatero announced during his address that the hike in the retirement age would come into effect in 2027. The cross-party Toledo Pact on Wednesday approved 21 recommendations on pension reform to present to the government, but did not reach consensus on the issue of retirement age. Congress is due to convene on January 25 to ratify the commission's findings.