Spain’s General Council of the Bar has backed a proposed “gateway” into RETA, the country’s public social-security regime for self-employed workers. The reform would give lawyers and other professionals who have paid into alternative professional mutual societies a route to move into the public system, allowing them accumulated economic rights to be recognised for social-security benefits and pensions.
The proposal is significant because many Spanish lawyers have historically relied on mutual societies instead of RETA, leaving some with weaker or less predictable retirement protection. The Bar argues that the reform would help close that gap without abolishing the mutualist model: professionals would still be able to choose between an alternative mutual society and RETA, while mutual societies would be subject to stronger transparency, supervision and protection requirements.