Abstract More than a decade after the start of the eurozone crisis, the coronavirus in Spain has brought back the idea of constitutional reform in social rights. The paradigm shift that occurred with the arrival of the pandemic is hardly questionable. From the austerity promoted by European institutions and assumed by national authorities in the face of the 2008 financial crisis, we have recently moved on to boosting public investment and social spending in both spheres of governance. This paper comparatively analyses the two scenarios to demonstrate that economic policy is a matter of ideology. Moreover, austerity is only one of many possible responses to economic downturns. And to preserve our welfare state in the face of future austerity trends, this paper argues strongly in favour of a series of constitutional reforms in Spain to guarantee the effectiveness of social rights.