Year 2050: this will be the Spain in which (barring unlikely changes) Leonor I will reign

In 2050, King Felipe VI will be eighty-one years old, and his daughter Leonor de Borbón y Ortiz , the current Princess of Asturias and heir to the Spanish throne, will be forty-four . Hypothetically, she will be married, have children, and be on the verge of taking over as Head of State, barring political reversals, which today must be considered, I suppose, as quite unlikely. Or unless, by then, she already holds the Head of State, of course.

Whatever the case, the country where Leonor de Borbón y Ortiz would reign will be very different from the one her father inherited from Juan Carlos I half a century ago. A completely different world, one that will require numerous adaptations to what exists today.

Generation Zeta, in power

Leonor de Borbón y Ortiz, the future Leonor I , who today embodies arguably the most likely change (or continuity) in Spanish politics, will have experienced, by the middle of this century, most of the changes we've suggested in this book. And many others that now seem unsuspected, because, at the pace the world is moving—flying—a quarter of a century is an eternity.

Generation Z (1997-2012), to which Leonor de Borbón belongs, has, like the other generations into which we have been divided, its own typical characteristics: they are digital natives, they accept diversity and inclusion as something natural, they have a certain commitment to climate change , they are not big drinkers, and both diversity and the enormous concern for mental health are part of their identity. Oh, and one in four young people between eighteen and twenty-four years old identify as bisexual . 23.6% exactly, according to the CIS .

Those of 'Gen Z' have been portrayed in the surveys that we at Periodismo 2030 have been conducting with Metroscopia and the AXA Foundation over the course of four years, with samples of three thousand or five thousand people, depending on the case.

Young Zs believe, much more than their elders, that a third world war is likely in the next thirty years (63% versus 53% of those older than 60). They assume that retirement will occur at seventy-five (65%) and that the current public pension system will end (49%, versus 40% who think this will not happen). They are convinced that teleworking is here to stay, although those over sixty-five think this to a greater extent (90% versus 82%). They believe that suicide will be the leading cause of death in the future (66% versus 52% of those over sixty-five) and that mental health will occupy the largest number of medical consultations.

There is one fact, scrutinizing the results of almost a hundred tables in the surveys, that has particularly caught my attention: 59% of young people between eighteen and thirty-four years old believe that in the next quarter of a century there will be an exodus from large cities to small towns and rural areas, which, as I pointed out in a previous chapter, is a fact refuted by reality and by the most severe forecasts, which think that 30% more people will end up in macrocities in the coming years.

We've asked young people in our surveys about many of the topics in this book and found that, in general, they are less imaginative than boomers , in that they seem to believe less in the speed and intensity of certain advances, such as the penetration of robots into our lives, the aerospace race, or the disappearance of cash, to name just a few disparate examples. Or perhaps their coexistence with continuous change makes them view changes as something natural: the concept of change is part of their normal journey through life.

I believe that this generation, which will presumably be the one exercising full political and business power by 2050, deserves very careful study. Not so much because their expectations and ideas differ greatly from those of other generations, which they do, but even more so because they display a good dose of realism—even a certain pessimism—about the future: I've already mentioned that 63% assume they will live worse than their parents , for example. And 50%, compared to 39% who believe the opposite, are convinced that in the future we will have new political models that will replace democracies as we conceive them today.

Leonor, approved

We have few sources regarding their monarchical or republican attitudes (the CIS, for example, never offers the public tables on this subject). But through what I've been asking some of those who prepare reports for the Zarzuela Palace or the government, we get the impression that among young people of this generation , radically monarchical or republican attitudes are not common . It seems that the form of the state is not a topic that, in principle, worries this sector of the population too much, although their leanings toward republican theses seem to slightly predominate. However, the image of Leonor de Borbón is clearly on the rise among young people, above that of other members of the royal family.

Specifically, 62.4% of young people surveyed (aged between eighteen and twenty-nine) believe the princess resonates with the values ​​of today's youth ; this is also the case for 95% of PP voters, 65% of Vox voters, and 60.7% of PSOE voters, according to a survey by NC Report for La Razón .

Broad support , despite the limitations of her position, which she has also helped generate, especially with the images we've seen of Leonor hanging out, like any other young woman, with her classmates during their holidays at both the Zaragoza Military Academy and the Naval School. As expected, Sumar voters are more critical, with only 13.3 percent believing she connects with the reality of young people her age. I lack reliable data on opinion within the world of Catalan and Basque nationalism, which obviously places the Monarchy-Republic dialectic on a different level. And the current state, in general. Which is, of course, an issue that will impact, in one way or another, what I've been calling "Leonor's world."

Likewise, 74.6% of Generation Z members believe the princess will reign and inherit the position of Head of State, an opinion largely shared by voters of the PP (94%), Vox (87.5%), and the PSOE (78.6%), and, to a much lesser extent, by those of Sumar (30%). Only 6.5% of those surveyed firmly believe she will not reign. Of course, quite a few don't know/don't answer.

Leonor, who is approaching her twenties, is now concluding the intensive phase of her military training after her time in Wales, about to begin her university courses, and in this regard, 68.6% believe she is progressing well along this path. But what score do young voters of each party give her? It ranges between 6.4 and 6.7. And if broken down by party, PP voters give Princess Leonor the highest score, 7.7, while Vox voters give her a 7.1. PSOE voters remain at 5.9. The only "national" electorate that fails the heiress is that of Sumar, with a 4.1.

I'd venture to say that the Monarchy-Republic dialectic isn't the biggest headache we Spaniards would have, although it's also among our concerns. Because public opinion is a weather vane. Who knows how things will turn out in 2050, and if there will still be polls like the ones we use today.

The revolution is education

Some people think that the change will actually be a matter of an " educational revolution." Seventy-three percent of respondents under the age of thirty-five think that new subjects will emerge, new disciplines that will, in some way, bring about this revolution. Curiously, those who think this way among those over sixty-five constitute 86%.

We should also consider this revolution if we want to fully understand the change that is upon us. It's not just about new academic degrees or creating new careers that respond to new social demands, but about fostering a new mindset. A different approach to the classic concepts of academic merit and evaluations.

I spoke extensively about the first with Juan Cayón , rector of the University of Design, Innovation and Technology (UDIT), who has burst into an academic world still quite sparsely populated from the university level, that of video game, fashion and product design, as well as full-stack software programming (interface design).

Cayón tells me, and I think he's right, that it's no longer enough to simply cite STEM (science, technology, mathematics) programs to talk about cutting-edge education. "Spain is a country with a reputation for business schools; why don't we do the same with our universities, which are far from the top 100 in the world? Because we're not very innovative ," he says. "There's quite a bit of squalor in some universities," he concludes, and when I ask him to summarize the change in one word, he says: "Change is innovation."

A quick search tells me the new university degrees : satellite engineering, railway systems engineering, raw materials metallurgical engineering, audiology, theatre studies... "There are now around 45 different engineering degrees," says Jorge González , an industrial engineer and founder of NextPlay Z, dedicated to providing career guidance for young people. We already know that many degrees (around 45 percent) will disappear, at least as they are currently conceived, and many new ones will emerge, most of them currently unknown and perhaps even unimaginable.

The goal would be to prevent thousands of graduates from some faculties each year from leaving without finding work; for that matter, we journalists know something about that. You have to think carefully, Jorge adds, before deciding on one of the 4,500 undergraduate degrees available in Spain today. That's not even counting Vocational Training, which is another issue. And that's not even counting those "subjects" recommended by one of Spain's leading specialists in food technology , Daniel Ramón ; for him, it's vital to establish teaching of food hygiene and other practical subjects (first aid, etc.) for our young people. Future generations, he tells me, cannot be obese and must, moreover, be self-sufficient in many areas of knowledge and practices.

Traditional schools no longer work

Regarding the second point, a new mindset, I interviewed Sonia Díez , who holds master's degrees from several universities, including Harvard, and is the author of a book that opened my eyes to new educational realities, EducACCIÓN. It has ten chapters that are just as many ways to understand that traditional school and university no longer work. "Something that was created two centuries ago logically no longer works because it has very rigid structures and functions." For her, "flexibility" and "personalization" are the two key words in her approach to the new educational reality.

"You can't measure a fish's talent by its ability to climb a tree," he tells me, supporting his thesis that "everyone is different and must evolve according to their ability," which is exactly the opposite of the mass and generalized education currently being taught. For Diego Rubio , former director of the Moncloa Prospective Office and the "father" of the Spain 2050 report, who is frequently quoted in this book, formal education is going to disappear; "we've been saying it for a long time." Who knows?

In any case, what we will see is that, over the next thirty years, schools will have a " zero screens " policy , which will be a huge change from what exists now. Has the war against the dictatorship of the screens begun? We'll have to ask, among others, Sara Baliña , the economist who replaced Rubio when he became Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez . At the moment, I don't know if there will be a new, revised and expanded edition of the Spain 2050 report. No one and nothing will confirm this for me: the current situation, the immediacy, the anguish of the new "Trumpist" era now prevail over everything else, including calm reflection on our future.

I also don't know if the public and private education infrastructure has the capacity to cope with this "individualization" of education. Sonia believes so. I believe the best always has to become possible . Although that usually takes a long time and has to overcome too many misunderstandings.

About the author and the book

Fernando Jáuregui (Santander, 1950) was born when Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Asimov's best stories were published. His entire life, he says, has been dominated by the desire to understand the future. This is what he aims to do with The Change in a Hundred Words (Plaza & Janés), the twentieth book he has written solo, with the addition of several other collectives. And this is what he seeks: to investigate new paths of information and life, with his Journalism 2030 forum, with which he has toured Spain several times.

He has worked in print and digital media, radio, and television. He has taught at universities and organized numerous photo ops and conferences. As a political journalist, he has written more than 12,000 articles for various national and international media outlets. "The Change in a Hundred Words" is a reportage, research, and writing in which Fernando Jáuregui explores what our lives will be like in 2050.

As Ricardo de Querol says in his book The great fragmentation , quoting the German author of the celebrated Next Station: Future , Ranga Yogeshwar , we are innovating without understanding the systems we create or their consequences. This has led the educational world to experience a heated debate about the dilemma "knowledge or skills?" "What is worrying is the attempt to exclude from school everything that is not considered 'useful' from a business perspective." And the fact is that, in addition to workers for the future, we must educate citizens and, ideally, structure critical thinking. Is that what we are doing, or exactly the opposite?

Teaching Generation Alpha (also, in some ways, Generation Z) will no longer be a matter for children and young people, because it will have to prepare us to reinvent ourselves time and again ... throughout our lives.

"We've been insisting so much on technical skills , and what we're going to need most, we're finally starting to realize, is philosophy ," De Querol concludes.

By the time this book is finished, the most intense phase of the "education revolution" will arrive somewhat late for Generation Z. Perhaps the "Zetas" will be the last generation not fully affected by the inevitable educational revolution, which will go far beyond the usual bickering between political forces whenever one of them passes a new Education Law. The "Alpha Generation," those born between 2010 and 2025, will encounter a world so radically new —even, as I say, from the perspective of the philosophy with which we illuminate our lives—that it is simply unimaginable today.

And after Trump, what?

I was often asked by foreign colleagues who arrived in Spain as correspondents or by newly arrived diplomats in Madrid about my opinion on whether Leonor, the Princess of Asturias, could end up inheriting the Spanish Crown or, rather, whether Spain would eventually become a Republic in the near future. I always responded that my personal wish would be for dynastic continuity, but that in a country as politically complex as Spain, where governing majorities are formed around parties that, in principle, seemed incompatible—and some of them even hostile—to the State, who knows what might happen.

I have said several times that I did not want to write a "political" book except when it was unavoidable, because everything is part of the politics of things and circumstances.

For the purposes of this work, I am interested in expounding on what the world of Eleanor I would foreseeably be like from a perspective we have not yet analyzed: the State. What kind ofdemocracy will be the one that houses it ? Or to what extent the end-of-the-world sentiment that inspires essays and fashionable essayists will have—I hope not—completed our spirits.

The "world of Leonor I" will have far surpassed the difficult " Trump era." An era that, according to a headline in the influential El Confidencial in early December 2024, when the figure had not yet formally and officially occupied the White House, opened " the war of all economic wars : Trump activates a spiral [with the tariffs announced by the Republican] in which everyone loses."

As I finish this book, that era remains a nightmare in which everyone senses too much is about to happen. A nightmare that will inevitably end in 2029, because a Republican reelection is unthinkable (or is it?).

I am interested in showing how the world of Eleanor I would foreseeably be from a perspective that we have not yet analyzed: the State

I'm interested in imagining the "post-Trump era" now; one in which the pendulum of history has predictably returned to a certain sanity. That will be the era that, to give an example that we Spaniards are very interested in, I call "the era of Eleanor I."

The era of Eleanor I will be one in which Putin will also be absent, the other pole of concern for the world and who has tried to guarantee himself power in the Kremlin until 2030, when the Russian neo-tsar will be nearly seventy-eight years old. Exactly the same age that Trump was when he entered the White House for the second time in his life in January 2025. This generational fact alone tells us enough about the extent to which the world now lives in a state of provisionality : not even the coming aging population pyramid would justify this gerontocracy.

I'm ignorant of many, many aspects of what the world will be like between 2030 and 2050, which is where we place the telescope of our expectations. I do know that we will be the ones who create "the foreseeable." I'm talking, for example, about creating legal and constitutional frameworks that protect Change and the tremendous changes that are upon us. There isn't a single country whose Constitution is suited to the era of Change. Not one.

Felipe González , a headline-making statesman, left the many people who attended a conference at CaixaForum in the spring of 2022 thinking. It's "im-pres-cin-di-ble" to reform the Constitution now, he told us. And he gave a reason that I don't think any of his listeners had thought of: "Because it needs to be digitized."

The Spanish Constitution, and those of most countries around the world, are alien to the digital age. The world of the internet and its sociological, economic, legal—and criminal—development have little or nothing to do with the fundamental laws of most countries.

This is the great task of the leaders of the future, who are expected to understand that, as a result of digitalization, the world has changed in ways that make it incompatible with the previous situation. Perhaps never have legality and reality been so far apart.

The 46th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution, on December 6, 2024, was celebrated with the usual ceremony in the Congress of Deputies. There, for the first time with such official intensity, both the Speaker of the Lower House, Francina Armengol , and the Prime Minister himself, Pedro Sánchez, referred to a possible and desirable reform of the fundamental law. Perhaps not with the scope and objectives I am referring to, but this will be a matter of debate among political forces, if their current leaders are ever able to reach the minimum agreements that would make this, in any case, inevitable and "im-pres-cin-di-ble" reform possible. And, if not, let us count on their sure replacement by other figures more inclined to reach an agreement.

The Spanish Constitution, and those of most countries in the world, is alien to the digital age.

I have addressed this issue with several constitutionalists from diverse ideological backgrounds. Perhaps the most interesting conversation I had on this subject took place with my law school colleague, Luis María Cazorla , professor of financial law , a state attorney, a lawyer in the Cortes Generales, and an inspector of services for the Ministry of Economy and Finance. As if that were not enough, he is the author of several excellent historical novels set in the Spanish protectorate of Morocco (he was born in Larache).

It's not my responsibility to include a treatise on the most urgent constitutional reforms here; that would take several volumes and would require people who have dedicated much of their lives to pondering them. In my contacts with constitutionalists, I've been able to draw some conclusions, and I provide a brief summary below.

Luis Cazorla acknowledges that "the 1978 Constitution is aging poorly; after forty-six years, it's outdated, as it couldn't be otherwise." He also attended the event where Felipe González spoke about the necessary "digitalization" of our fundamental law, and he believes this is "the substantive issue." Among other things, because the rights of Spaniards should be expanded, including the right to privacy against attacks by large technology companies.

Updating the Constitution in every sense would require the reform, deletion, or creation of some 40 articles , "touching" at least three Titles, primarily Title VIII, dedicated to the autonomous regions, but also others. I agree with Cazorla that the current situation places the autonomous state as a "semi-federal state," with almost all the disadvantages and almost none of the advantages . Perhaps the federalization of the nation is desirable, but it is something that must be done with careful consideration of how the country's territorialization will ultimately emerge.

It is necessary, says Cazorla, to clearly delineate the powers of the State and those of the Autonomous Communities, including "perhaps some exceptions," referring to special treatment for Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Navarre, which is still incredibly subject to a transitional constitutional provision, the Fourth, which is difficult to justify at this point, almost half a century after the fundamental rule was drafted.

Other sections of the bill to be addressed, according to a majority of opinions, concern the functioning of political parties and a thorough reform of electoral regulations —with the unblocking of candidacies—to guarantee the country's governability, insofar as the regulations for elections are constitutionally enshrined. The reform would also affect the Cortes Generales (profound changes to the regulations of Congress and the Senate) to consolidate Parliament as the cornerstone of democracy.

Opinion

A majority of specialists—and I include some, whom I cannot name, who are very close to the government and the Moncloa —think that an ambitious reform will have to take place, sooner or later. At the 46th anniversary ceremony in the Congress of Deputies, a "veteran," such as Juan Van-Halen , a poet who was president of the Madrid Assembly with the Popular Party and a senator in the Cortes Generales, even asked me if I believed that the Constitution, in its current form, would reach its fiftieth anniversary. "Of course, as long as it doesn't take fourteen years every time some minimal reform has to be made," I replied, alluding to the reform of Article 49, in which the mere replacement of the term "physically handicapped" with "disabled," on which everyone agreed, took a decade and a half to actually implement.

I suspect that the aforementioned swing of the pendulum toward common sense will lead the majority political forces to prepare for the "Leonor era," paving the way for it with all the legal (and moral) reforms that this turbulent era of great change and change makes essential. With legislation that sufficiently defends the State, unlike the current one.

As Aldo Olcese , author of Humanistic capitalism and organizer of congresses on civil society, it is necessary that large business corporations cooperate decisively, through their foundations, in this idea, that of the extension of an active and organized civil society almost as a "counter-power", to be added to the media and the classic powers of Montesquieu .

Reforming the constitutions that govern countries is just one way to face the future in the "Leonor era." The keys to facing the next two decades go far beyond specific constitutional or educational reforms.

Some of the biggest challenges

The major challenges center on redirecting social networks; understanding that inequality must be mitigated as a first step before being curbed; the right to digital disconnection; including among the so-unfulfilled human rights the right to freedom of speech; global governance for Artificial Intelligence ; constitutionalizing and guaranteeing the universal right to housing; understanding that the world no longer means the dominance of the West... And ensuring that what we might call "the universal state of common sense," which today seems completely lost, prevails in the decisions of leaders whom citizens should select perhaps using more... rigorous criteria?

The era of Artificial Intelligence has already begun in all its splendor, and for now, we talk more about its risks than its possibilities, and that is perhaps the first and greatest mistake of modern philosophers who tell us about the end of the world. From Judith Butler , who revolutionized traditional ideas about gender, to Thomas Piketty , the man who is leading us to new concepts of capitalism, a true revolution in thought is taking place, driven more by technological advances, which dictate a new philosophy, than by a desire for progress.

Generation Z will draw little inspiration from names that today alter what we might call "reassuring thought." They, some frequently cited in this book, such as Yuval Noah Harari , Jünger Habermas, Byung-Chul Han , Slavoj Žižek , and Jamie Bartlett , are the ones who paved the way for an entire philosophical mood in a "thesis of extreme pessimism." This is the mood of the first quarter of the 21st century, that of the not-so-happy "twenties." The "thirties" and "forties" will be, I suspect, very different, because we will have overcome all the babbling and much of the current uncertainty.

The era of AI has begun in all its splendor and we talk more about its risks than its possibilities.

The 'Zeta generation' will live with a certain normality with robotization , will understand that we humans have won against the machine and that it is false that, as Ricardo de Querol says, "the next frontier of loneliness will be feeling misunderstood also by robots", and that human intelligence will not be weakened, but the opposite, by the advance of Artificial Intelligence, still the great unknown.

Let me express my confidence in this 'Generation Zeta'; basically because it will be the survivor of the boomers , already back from everything, of the 'X', who now manage a status quo that corresponds to the past, and of the millennials , who are now entering their forties, charged with facing the dawn of the beginning of the Great Change that has already arrived , although it has not yet been their turn to settle it completely. They, 'zetas' and millennials , are, as I said in the dedication, the recipients of this book.