Conference of Presidents (Spain)

The Conference of Presidents is the highest-level political body for cooperation between the Government of Spain, the autonomous communities and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. It is the highest of Spain’s multilateral cooperation bodies. It has no constitutional or statutory basis. It is chaired by the Prime Minister (in Spanish, President of the Government), the 17 presidents of the autonomous communities and the 2 mayors-president of the 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 countries. top-level political meetings like this, with similar names, are also held in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Canada. At the end of the XX 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 the 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 discussing and establish 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 it didn’t finally happen. 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.

Composition Number Date LocationPrime MinisterAgenda1st28 October 2004Palace of the Senate(Madrid, Madrid)José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero2nd10 Septiembre 20053rd11 January 20074th14 December 20095th2 October 2012Mariano Rajoy Brey6th17 January 20177th15 March 2020Extraordinary meetingsby teleconference due to the COVID-19 pandemicPedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón8th22 March 20209th29 March 202010th5 April 202011th12 April 202012th19 April 202013th26 April 202014th3 May 202015th10 May 202016th17 May 202017th24 May 202018th31 May 202019th7 June 202020th14 June 202021st31 July 2020San Millán de Yuso Monastery(San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja)22nd4 September 2020Meeting by teleconference23rd26 October 202024th30 July 2021Saint Stephen Convent(Salamanca, Salamanca)25th22 December 2021Meeting by teleconference26th13 March 2022Benahoarita Archaeological Museum(Los Llanos de Aridane, Santa Cruz de Tenerife)27th13 December 2024Royal Palace of the Magdalena(Santander, Cantabria)

Conference of Presidents (Spain)

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