[1] After signing, the Pacts were ratified by Spain's Congress of Deputies on October 17 and the Spanish Senate on November 11.
These included the petrol crisis of 1973 (which had taken some time to reach Spain), the rise of unemployment to 7% exacerbated by a return of emigres to Spain after the death of Franco, inflation rising to 40%, capital flight in the last years of the dictatorship, businesses that had become used to the corporatism and interventionism of Franco's regime and the legalisation of unions which sometimes took a confrontational stance in the face of a wage freeze and devaluation of the peseta.
For its part, the Opposition, as well as a portion of Suarez's own government, the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), wanted a constituent assembly.
The agreements meant that the unions and the left would accept a wage freeze and moderate their demands in return for promises of fiscal, legal and institutional reform such as a property tax and income tax, parliamentary control of the media, measures to put a break on housing speculation, a review of the Military Justice Code and improved social security and free education.
[3] The success of the Pacts was more political than social or economic as the left accepted thereby that their claims in future would be "bound by the constraints of the market economy" and the Government had the legitimacy and consensus to move forward with drafting the Constitution.