As a deputy, Joan Saura promoted several initiatives, such as a rise in the minimum wage, a fight against workplace abuses by employers, same-sex marriage and the Tobin tax. Additionally, he was strongly opposed to other ones: the Plan Hidrológico Nacional (PHN), the reform of the labour market law, the quality in teaching law, the political parties' law, the tax reform, the Prestige affair and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.