Conference of Presidents (Spain) explained

The Conference of Presidents is the highest-level political body for cooperation and the autonomous communities and the Government of Spain. It is at the top of the group of multilateral cooperation bodies. It has no constitutional or statutory basis. It is made up of the Prime Minister of Spain, (known as "president" in Spanish: Spanish; Castilian: Presidente), and who presides, the 17 presidents of the autonomous communities and the 2 mayors-president autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. A first meeting under the presidency of Felipe González in 1990 can be considered precedent-setting.

This is a common cooperation body in politically decentralised states. These top-level political meetings, with similar names, are also held in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Canada. At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the XXI, it has assumed great importance as a driving force in the development of the so-called cooperative federalism, fundamentally in Germany and Austria.

In all these countries, the Conference of Presidents is institutionalized, either through agreements that regulate aspects relating to the functioning and contents of meetings (in the case of Switzerland or Italy), or through the recognition of a political practice by habit, which is inherent in the cooperative operation of the state (Germany, Austria or Canada).

History

The creation of the Conference of Presidents was announced by the President of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in its inaugural meeting and was established on October 28, 2004. Given its nature and political level, its scope of action is open and its purpose is to debate and adopt agreements on matters of special relevance to the autonomous system.Its functioning is flexible and its decisions are based on the principle of the agreement of the participants, in practice it is a merely consultative body of the Central Government with the autonomous communities and cities.The Conference of Presidents, in its first editions, was held with irregular periodicity, and always at the proposal of the Government of the Nation. Starting with the V Conference of Presidents, held on December 14, 2009, the Government approved a regulation establishing that the conferences would be held on an annual basis, although this was not fulfilled.Thus, Zapatero's first government held meetings on 28 October 2004, 10 September 2005 and 11 January 2007. During Zapatero's second government, only one conference was held, on 14 December 2009. Mariano Rajoy held only one conference during his first term, on 2 October 2012. In January 2017, during his second term, the second conference was held with Rajoy at the helm.

The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez was the one who convened the most conferences, up to twenty between 2020 and 2022, many of them due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact since the seventh conference, most of the meetings held between 2020 and 2021 were teleconferences.[1]

Composition

NumberDateLocationPrime MinisterAgenda
I28 October 2004Palacio del Senado

(Madrid)
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
II10 Septiembre 2005
III11 January 2007
IV14 December 2009
V2 October 2012Mariano Rajoy Brey
VI17 January 2017
VII15 March 2020Extraordinary meetings

by teleconference due to

the COVID-19 pandemic
Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón
VIII22 March 2020
IX29 March 2020
X5 April 2020
XI12 April 2020
XII19 April 2020
XIII26 April 2020
XIV3 May 2020
XV10 May 2020
XVI17 May 2020
XVII24 May 2020
XVIII31 May 2020
XIX7 June 2020
XX14 June 2020
XXI31 July 2020Monasterio de Yuso

(San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja)
XXII4 September 2020Meeting by teleconference
XXIII26 October 2020
XXIV30 July 2021Convento de San Esteban

(Salamanca)
XXV22 December 2021Meeting by teleconference
XXVI13 March 2022Museo Arqueológico Benahoarita

(Los Llanos de Aridane, La Palma)

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2020-10-25 . Los entresijos de la conferencia de presidentes . 2023-11-28 . La Vanguardia . es.