Functioning, background and history of the Council of Ministers

Functioning of the Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers is a collegiate body of the Government. It is composed of the president, the vice-presidents, if any, and the ministers.

The President of the Government of Spain convenes, chairs and sets the agenda for meetings of the Council of Ministers, which may be of a deliberative and/or decision-making nature. The deliberations are secret, but minutes are taken of the sessions and are available for consultation by all citizens.

The King may chair the sessions of the Council of Ministers and be informed of affairs of state, when he deems it appropriate, at the request of the President of the Government of Spain.

The Council of Ministers is regulated in Title IV of the 1978 Constitution, and in Law 50/1997 on the Government.

Functions of the Council of Ministers

As a collegiate body of the Government of Spain, the Council of Ministers is responsible for exercising the following functions:

Drafting of laws and regulations

• Approve draft laws and refer them to the Lower House of Parliament or, where appropriate, to the Upper House of Parliament.
• Approve the General State Budget Bill.
• Approve Royal Decree-Laws and Royal Legislative Decrees.
• Approve the regulations for the development and execution of laws, following the opinion of the Council of State, as well as other appropriate regulatory provisions.

International relations

• Agree on the negotiation and signature of international treaties and their provisional application.
• Refer international treaties to the General Courts under the terms provided for in Articles 94 and 96.2 of the Constitution.

Directorate of the General State Administration

• Creating, modifying and suppressing the executive bodies of the ministerial departments.
• Adopt programmes, plans and guidelines that are binding for all the bodies of the General State Administration.

Other functions

• Declare states of alarm and emergency and propose to the Lower House of Parliament the declaration of a state of siege.
• Provide for the issuance of public debt or to contract credit, when authorised by law.
• Exercise such other powers as are conferred on it by the Constitution, the law and any other provision.

Meetings

Meeting room of the Council of Ministers | Foto: Pool Moncloa/Fernando Calvo

Ordinarily, the Council of Ministers meets on Tuesdays at Moncloa Palace (Madrid), although exceptionally it can be held on any other day.

The President of the Government of Spain can move the meetings of the Council of Ministers to other cities, if he deems it necessary. At one time or another, they have been held in Barcelona, Seville, A Coruña, Palma de Mallorca, Palos de la Frontera (Huelva), Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, León and Mérida.

In exceptional circumstances, and with good reason, the chief executive can decide that the Council of Ministers may hold meetings, adopt resolutions and approve minutes remotely by electronic means, provided that the participating members are in Spanish territory and their identity is accredited.

In addition to members of the Government, meetings of the Council of Ministers may be attended by Secretaries of State and, exceptionally, by other senior officials when called by the president. The deliberations of the Council of Ministers are secret.

General Commission of Secretaries of State and Under-Secretaries

The General Commission of Secretaries of State and Under-Secretaries is a body for collaboration and support of the Government. It is made up of the heads of the secretariats of state and sub-secretariats of the different ministerial departments, and it is chaired by a vice-president of the government or, failing that, by the minister of the presidency.

The commission examines all matters to be submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval, with the exception of appointments, dismissals, certain promotions and matters which, exceptionally and for reasons of urgency, must be submitted directly to the Council.

Each ministry submits to the committee a list of what it considers should be examined by the Council of Ministers, constituting the partial indices. The set of partial indexes is called the black index and contains all the issues to be dealt with in the committee.

On the basis of this index, the committee draws up the final agenda for the Council of Ministers and organises the issues to be addressed into two indices:

• Green index: This brings together the matters reported favourably by the General Committee of Secretaries of State and Under-Secretaries.
• Red index: This consists of the matters to be submitted for special deliberation.

The minutes of the Council of Ministers

Minutes will be kept of each meetings of the Council of Ministers, and will exclusively contain the circumstances relating to the time and place of the meeting, the list of those attending, the resolutions adopted, and the reports presented. The minutes do not contain information regarding their specific content or the opinions expressed, as the deliberations are secret.

The minutes follow a strict procedure that requires all ministries to expressly agree to their content. The President of the Government and the Minister of the Presidency, as Secretary of the Council of Ministers, sign the final minutes, which are kept on file and in the custody of the Ministry of the Presidency.

The minutes after December 1978 are digitised and can be consulted free of charge by all citizens on the website of the Ministry of the Presidency.

Communication of agreements

Following the meetings of the Council of Ministers, the government spokesperson holds a press conference to report on the decisions taken. They may appear alone or in the company of other ministers. Occasionally, the President of the Government himself appears to report on matters discussed in the Council.

The State Secretariat for Communication facilitates the dissemination of the press conference to the media, and transmits it directly through the Moncloa website and the Government's social networks. The body subsequently publishes two informative publications on this portal. The first is the Reference of the Council of Ministers, which is a different document to the minutes and is not of a legal nature, and provides a summary of all the issues discussed at the Council. The second is the summary of the press conference. These documents are available to journalists and to all citizens.

Background and history of the Council of Ministers

The origin of the Council of Ministers dates back to 19 November 1823, the day on which King Ferdinand VII issued a Royal Decree creating the Council of Ministers, addressed to the then first Secretary of State, Víctor Damián Sáez.

According to this rule, the Council was conceived as a collegiate body, chaired by the king, and composed of five members. Its function was to deal with matters of general utility and to issue orders by common agreement, which were recorded in a book.

The Royal Decree cites two precedents, the Cabinet Council created by Philip V in November 1714 and the Supreme Council of State established by Charles III in July 1787.

First meeting

Original minutes of the Council of Ministers of February 15, 1824

The first meeting recorded in the minutes was held on 3 January 1824, although it was unsigned. The first titular secretary of the Council of Ministers was Antonio de Ugarte y Larrazábal, who signed the first minutes of the Council of Ministers on 15 February 1824.

The absence of minutes between November and December 1823 suggests that no meetings were held. However, newspapers of the time published decrees issued by the Council of Ministers, so the councils must have been held.

Developments

The Council of Ministers met 42 times in 1824, but the monarch only attended five meetings. Without express attribution, the Minister of State chaired the remaining 37 sessions.

By Royal Decree of 31 December 1824, Ferdinand VII formally and expressly recognised that in his absence the first Secretary of State and the Universal Office, under the previously non-existent title of President of the Council of Ministers, would preside over the Council. The text was addressed to Francisco de Cea y Bermúdez.

This Royal Decree also outlined the regularity with which the Council of Ministers was to be held: "Twice a week at the most and whenever any of his secretaries in the office consider it necessary".

The minutes reveal that the Council of Ministers held its meetings in the Royal Palace until 1825. From then until the end of the reign of Isabel II it was moved to the so-called Casa de los Ministerios, a building that currently houses the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales (Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies). Meetings were also held at some of the Royal Sites, such as Aranjuez, San Lorenzo and La Granja.

Facade of the Council of Ministers Building at the Moncloa Palace | Foto: Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa

Throughout the 19th century and most of the 20th century, the seat of the Council .was not fixed It was not until 1977 that it moved to its current headquarters, the Council of Ministers building located in Moncloa Palace. The 1978 Constitution also established its current role as a collegiate body of successive governments within the framework of a social and democratic state governed by the rule of law.

Bicentenary of the Council of Ministers: publication of new proceedings

The minutes of the Council of Ministers are essential documentation for understanding the historical evolution of Spain.

Between 1989 and 1992, in a pioneering initiative among countries in our vicinity, the first minutes of the meetings held between 3 January 1824 and 1930 were transcribed and published for their documentary value and their contribution to transparency and the common heritage of the Spanish people.

These documents cover a period of 106 years, but only 21 years' records are available, and in some cases they are incomplete. In some periods they were not drafted and in others they may have been lost. They are collected in eight volumes corresponding to the period of Ferdinand VII (between 1824-1833), two volumes to the period of Isabella II (1833-1839, 1843-1844 and 1854-1855) and the First Spanish Republic (1873-1874), plus another volume corresponding to the second period of the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, known as the Civil Directory (1925-1930). This last period is the only one in Spain's political history that is documented in detail in the minutes of the Council of Ministers.

The minutes corresponding to the Councils of Ministers held from the beginning of the Second Republic in 1931 until the end of the Civil War, which ushered in the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in 1939, have not been located. Neither are the minutes of the councils held from 1939 to 1957 preserved. In 1957, a decree regulated the meetings of the Council of Ministers, and since then the minutes have been kept at the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Parliamentary Relations.

On the occasion of the bicentenary of the creation of the Council of Ministers on 19 November 2023, and in an exercise of transparency and public service, the Government published all the minutes subsequent to the 1978 Constitution, which are available to the public on the website of the Ministry of the Presidency.

Sources:

Minutes of the Council of Ministers (Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Parliamentary Relations); Archive of the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Parliamentary Relations; The origins of the Council of Ministers in Spain. José Antonio Escudero (2023); The creation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. José Antonio Escudero (1972).

Non official translation