The Minister of Economy, Commerce and Business, Carlos Body, has announced that the Government will approve this January. The measure seeks to “protect consumers, avoid over-indebtedness” and, therefore, advance the “rights for consumers themselves,” as stated by Body this Thursday in an interview on Cadena SER. Among the new features of the new regulation, a minimum period of 24 hours will be set between a binding offer and acceptance, so that the user can reflect on it.
The head of Economy has detailed that the regulations will reinforce consumer protection in three dimensions. On the one hand, it aims to improve transparency. The regulation will require that, when quick credits, microcredits or cards are promoted revolving —credit cards that allow you to pay in installments in exchange for higher interest—, “but this has to come hand in hand with the rest of the conditions and that we are not deceived simply because of the immediacy”
Secondly, Body has explained that the new regulation, which will transpose the European consumer credit directive, will require that a minimum period of 24 hours elapse between a binding offer and its acceptance, with the aim of stopping impulsive purchases and having the time to “internalize such an important decision.” The third and final dimension that he mentioned, also relevant, is the possibility of meeting interests, “putting limits on the costs of this type of products,” he concluded.
Corps has also announced that new processes based on automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will be introduced to reduce bureaucratic burdens and streamline procedures for companies, with the aim of facilitating interaction with public administrations. “The idea is (…) a ChatGPT for SMEs, or a Gemini [la IA de Google]”, the minister has exemplified, which allows companies to know what aid they can qualify for and request it automatically, since the AI will have already generated a draft of the application, as is already the case with the personal income tax return.
Regarding the possibility that the Executive manages to approve, however, it has been cautious. “We, and the President of the Government himself has said it, are being able to develop our investment and reform agenda in this context of budget extension. This does not mean that we are, of course, going to make the effort,” he said after stating “As soon as we open the blinds, we could say this January 1, 2026, [que] Spain is already growing around 1% or 1.1%. This is practically the rate they give to the entire euro zone for the whole year.”
The increasingly complicated access to housing, however, continues to be a great concern, which the Body has defined as “the challenge of this legislature.” In this sense, he has assured that the Government is acting on different fronts, from “the recomposition” of the public housing stock to the implementation of measures that speed up construction processes, from rents, for example with the creation of , to the coverage of “market failures”, such as .
“In addition to this, I believe that an investment effort is necessary to rebuild, along with the private sector, the supply in our country, after more than a decade where the construction sector went from representing 13% of the GDP to 6%,” added Body. “This clearly speaks of the lack of investment that has occurred in the last decade.”
