Unions in Spain are calling for a new just transition strategy that goes beyond plant closures to revive the fabric of life in affected regions, linking public services with jobs and investment. 

“When a power plant closes in a rural area, you don’t just lose jobs,” said Manuel Riera of UGT, one of Spain’s largest unions. “You risk losing the life of the place – the families, the neighbours, the school, the bus line. To keep people rooted, we have to rebuild whole economies.”

The end goal is to safeguard workers, diversify rural economies, and keep families rooted.

Spain’s breakthrough: dialogue and territorial pacts

Spain is among the few countries to have managed coal closures through negotiated territorial pacts. Since 2018, 15 agreements have been signed between national, regional and local governments in areas hit by mine and power plant shutdowns. The government also reached tripartite accords with unions and coal companies, guaranteeing solutions for affected workers.

“For the first time, workers and their communities had a seat at the table. It demonstrated that a just transition is possible and that social dialogue with trade unions must be the first step” Riera said. “That gave people dignity in a moment of loss.”

These frameworks funded retraining, supported job-creating projects and ensured public participation. They became an international reference for how social dialogue can guide decarbonisation.

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Lessons learned: from energy to social transition

But the experience has also exposed key limits. Job creation alone has not been enough to sustain rural life.

“Again and again we heard: in addition to employment, what decides if families stay is whether there is transport, housing, health care, education,” Riera said. “That is what keeps a territory alive. We have to move from an energy transition to a social transition.”

Judit Carreras Garcia, director of the Instituto para la Transición Justa (ITJ), reflected on the government’s efforts to respond to these challenges:

“Over the years, we have sought to make the just transition a reality through concrete policies and actions — walking the talk through a wide range of measures that include employability schemes, training, funding lines for job-creating business initiatives, just transition energy tender grids, municipal support programmes and environmental restoration,” she explained.

“All of them aim at minimising the impacts of decarbonisation and optimising outcomes based on participation and social dialogue. This effort has come with its own challenges — from managing timing gaps to addressing very different territorial starting points — but our commitment remains firm.”

Both unions and government acknowledge that anticipation is crucial: closures must be aligned with new opportunities, and support must adapt to vastly different territorial realities – from regions facing depopulation to those with stronger infrastructure.

The next phase for just transition

UGT is now working with its federations to shape Spain’s next Just Transition Strategy (2026–2030). Visits to pact areas, including Aragón, where a coal plant closed in 2020, reveal a rising sense of frustration.

“People are tired of waiting,” Riera said. “We have projects on paper, but they don’t see them materialising. Without effective coherent planning, workers retrain and then have to move to Madrid or Barcelona. That is not territorial justice.”

The unions’ demand: keep the territorial approach, but expand it across ministries and sectors, ensuring that services and infrastructure grow alongside jobs.

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Behind the technical debates lies a deeper fear: the hollowing out of rural Spain, where thousands of villages have already lost their young people and their future. A mishandled transition could accelerate that trend.

“This is not only about jobs,” Riera said. “It is about whether towns survive at all. When a power station shuts, it’s not just the jobs inside the gates that disappear. The bus stops running, the school risks closing, the clinic can’t keep going, housing starts to deteriorate. Families leave, and a town empties. And once they leave, they rarely come back.”

Sharing lessons internationally

In September, Riera met unions from around the world to share Spain’s experience. His message was simple: we must fight for social dialogue and territorial agreements, but these are the beginning — not the end — of a just transition.

“If decisions are only made in the capital, they miss what life is like in a village. What Madrid sees as energy policy, a small town sees as survival: will there still be a bus, a clinic, a school? That is why workers and communities must always be in the room.”

For Riera, the work that goes into the just transition is also a chance to imagine something new.

“We can use this moment not just to protect people from loss, but to renew rural life — to make villages places where families want to stay, where children can imagine their future. This is about dignity, but also about love: love of place, love of community, love of life itself.”

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A call for Belém – and beyond

Now in Belém for COP30, Riera is bringing a clear message to world leaders: Spain’s experience shows that the just transition must be built from the ground up. The Belém Action Mechanism that has been proposed, he argues, should require cross-sector transition plans – not just energy policies; guarantee participation from workers and communities; and secure public finance capable of delivering not only jobs but the services that sustain life around them.

“The Global South faces the same challenge: how to transition without abandoning people. Without public finance, that is impossible,” he said. “If we treat the just transition as a bargaining chip, we betray them. But if we take it seriously, we can create hope — from Spain to Brazil, from Santander to Belém.”

“This is not only about closing coal or opening renewables,” he added. “It is about whether people can imagine a future for their children. That is what the just transition means.”