What kind of government does spain have

The Kingdom of Spain is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy guided by the constitution. The head of government is the king, a position which is hereditary.

Daughters are allowed to inherit kingship only if the king has no sons. The government is a devolved one with autonomous regions and regional governments. Spain is divided into seventeen autonomous communities and two autonomous cities.

Though the regions have their local government, the state still retains overall sovereignty. Before taking office, the king is supposed to take an oath of office swearing that he will uphold the constitutions and perform his duties. The Spanish constitution was promulgated in The constitution was drafted to eliminate dictatorship and make Spain a parliamentary monarchy.

Since , many Autonomous Communities have reformed their Statutes towards a larger autonomy. The right to self-government is enshrined in the Constitution Article 2. Moreover, the autonomy of the Municipalities, the Provinces and the Autonomous Communities is embedded in Article Pursuant to the Constitution, the Autonomous Communities adopt their own Statutes and hold legislative powers.

The Autonomous Communities, the Provinces and the Municipalities run their respective affairs autonomously. The Provinces exist mainly for coordinating purposes. One should note that provincial competences are assumed by the Autonomous Community in those that comprise only one province namely Murcia, La Rioja, Madrid, Asturias and Cantabria. Moreover, the Basque Country and Navarra have special financial competencies, as they are the only Autonomous Communities with powers to keep, establish and regulate their tax regime.

The Constitution sets out the division of powers: some competences are expressly attributed to the State whereas the Autonomous Communities may assume the residual competences in their Statutes of Autonomy. At first and until the mids, important differences existed between the Autonomous Communities, depending on their history and on their procedure of creation. Nonetheless, as of today, all Autonomous Communities enjoy the same degree of political autonomy and the differences between the exercise of their powers is rather low mainly some specific cultural and linguistic powers, civil legislation and some specific provisions on police and public security, immigration, etc.

Conflicts on competences between the central and regional authorities are ruled by the Constitutional Court. Besides the Constitution, the Statutes of the Autonomous Communities and several laws describe the vertical division of powers. According to the powers constitutionally guaranteed to the State, the Statutes of Autonomy define the institutions and powers of each Autonomous Community.

They must be approved via a procedure that results in the agreement between the regional assembly and the national parliament. Consequently, the powers of the Communities may increase or decrease without changing the Constitution, provided that they are adopted within the confines of the constitutional framework. Nevertheless, the procedure to reform the Statutes of Autonomy is almost as rigid as the reform of the Constitution and must seek an agreement between the national and regional parliaments.

Such participation is developed internally through the different sectoral conferences and, since directly in the committee system which oversees the delegated acts implemented by the European Commission ex-comitology.

It is also responsible for safeguarding the independence of the courts and defending the public interest in court proceedings. The Crown Prosecutor may lodge an appeal for protection.

The Autonomous Communities and towns and cities with a Statute of regional autonomy. The Constitution of recognised and guaranteed the right to autonomy of the nationalities and regions forming part of the Spanish nation and the solidarity between all of them. The development of the constitutional provisions has led to a sea change in the territorial organisation of the State. This has been brought about through the creation of the Autonomous Communities and the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla, with the consequent redistribution of political and administrative power between central and autonomous authorities.

The outcome of this redistribution has made Spain one of the most decentralised countries in Europe. This is the basic institutional regulation of the Community, governing essential aspects such as the organisation and operation of its Parliament and Government, the powers the Community assumes, its Administration, the identifying marks and distinctive aspects such as language or civil law and relations with the State and other Autonomous Communities.

The distribution of powers between the State and the Autonomous Communities is based on the distinction between the exclusive powers of the State and the Autonomous Communities, the powers shared between the State and the Autonomous Communities and concurrent powers, in which both the State and Autonomous Communities may intervene. The exclusive powers include legislative power and implementing capacity, while shared powers may lead to a different distribution of legislative and regulatory power between the State and Autonomous Communities, which usually hold the implementing capacity in these cases.

If a conflict of powers occurs, the Constitutional Court settles the matter, as in other politically decentralised states. The system of government of the Autonomous Communities is parliamentary in nature. Its basic institutions being Parliament, the president of the Autonomous Community and the regional government. Autonomous Communities have considerable freedom in terms of economic and financial management.

They are able to approve their own annual budgets and determine their own resources through taxes, rates and surcharges. The general funding system of Autonomous Communities, which also includes taxes assigned by the State and participation in national taxes, is set multilaterally by the State and Autonomous Communities, ensuring inter-regional solidarity and an equal threshold in the provision of basic public services throughout Spain thanks to a range of financial mechanisms.

With these financial systems, these Communities agree with the State their contribution to its support and to the harmonisation of their own tax system with that which prevails in the rest of national territory.

The experience of the implementation of the autonomous state for almost thirty years, the overall balance of which is wholly positive, has helped pinpoint aspects that could be improved as regards its functioning, without detriment to its constitution.

The need to reform the system of funding to increase joint tax responsibility of Autonomous Communities, ensuring solidarity and regional cohesion, was also made clear. In order to perfect the state of the Autonomous Communities in this sense, most of the Autonomous Communities have implemented reforms of the Statutes of Regional Autonomy in recent years. Other regional parliaments have submitted their proposed statutory reforms to the Cortes Generales or are currently working on them.

Furthermore, the State and Autonomous Communities agreed on a new general system of funding, effective from 1 January , which represents an important step towards the consolidation of the autonomous state, by ensuring the benefits of the welfare state, among others.

It can be concluded, therefore, that the autonomous state is currently in a final stage of maturity and improvement, requiring several years for its culmination.

In Spain today there are 50 provinces and 8, municipalities that, due to the number of inhabitants, are very unevenly distributed in terms of size.

Thus, in accordance with the official figures from the review of the municipal register at 1 January , 4, municipalities Only municipalities 1. In terms of organisation, the institutions of government and administration of the municipalities are councils ayuntamientos , those of the provinces are provincial councils diputaciones provincials and those of the islands the island councils or Cabildos and Consejos Insulares in the Canary Islands and the Balearics, respectively.

The governing bodies of the councils are the mayor, who presides the city council, the deputy mayors, who stand in for the mayor, the local government board Junta de Gobierno Local , which is only required in municipalities with a population of over 5, inhabitants, and the plenary session Pleno , comprising all councillors, who are elected directly by the residents of the municipality with open lists for municipalities whose population does not exceed inhabitants and with closed lists for municipalities of over inhabitants, using the proportional voting system.

The mayor is elected by absolute majority of the councillors, from the candidates at the top of the corresponding electoral lists. If a majority is not obtained, the councillor at the top of the list with the most popular votes is proclaimed mayor.

In municipalities using open lists, the candidate who wins an absolute majority of the votes of the councillors is proclaimed mayor; and if neither wins the majority, the councillor who has won the most popular votes in the election is proclaimed mayor. In addition, there is a special system of open council concejo abierto , reformed in January , in which municipalities with fewer than inhabitants, together with those that traditionally and voluntarily use this special system, and those which, owing to their geographical location, this is the best way to manage municipal interests, have a municipal government and administration made up of a mayor and a local assembly that all voters are part of.

In municipal elections it is not just Spanish voters who enjoy active and passive voting rights, but also European Union citizens living in Spain under the same conditions as Spanish people and also foreign residents in Spain whose respective countries allow Spanish people to vote in these elections, under the terms of a treaty article The provincial council is indirectly elected.

Its members belong to different political parties, coalitions, federations and groups of voters who have obtained a councillor within each circuit after the local elections. Its main task is to assist and cooperate with municipalities, particularly those with lower economic and management capacities, as well as to assure the provision of the minimum mandatory services the law imposes on the municipalities.

The Spanish Constitution establishes in Article 3 that Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State and that all Spaniards have a duty to know it and the right to use it.

The other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with their statutes. Furthermore, it sets down that the wealth of the different linguistic forms of Spain is a cultural heritage which shall be especially respected and protected. The Constitution, together with legislation of the bilingual Communities of Spain, is an advanced legal corpus regarding the acknowledgement of linguistic rights, without prejudice to the Spanish or Castilian language.

The official language of the State, Castilian, is the language of the former kingdom of Castile. When it spread across the world in the 16 th and 17 th centuries, it became increasingly referred to as «Spanish».

Since then both names have coexisted. Internationally, the most widely accepted name is «Spanish», while «Castilian» tends to be used in the north of Spain and in its bilingual areas, as well as across vast regions of South America. Like the other Romance languages, Spanish was formed over the long period ranging from the 4 th to the 10 th centuries as a result of the fragmentation of Latin. In the 13 th century it was already a language of culture.

The popular epic gave rise to Cantar de Mio Cid , an anonymous 12 th century poem that suggests the existence of an old literary tradition prior to it.

In the early 16 th century, Castilian had spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and was becoming an international language. In the dissemination of the Spanish language, its arrival in America in was to be crucial.

Castilian was to be the language that travelled to the new overseas territories and, once there, it was to borrow many words from the indigenous languages. Instituto Cervantes Ministry of the Presidency Spanish is a language that has been growing virtually since the 16 th century, and time has not held it back.

The communities enjoy great autonomy, and the Constitution recognizes their right to self govern. Citizens of any other member country of the European Union can vote in local and municipal elections, as long as they are residents in Spain. The Kingdom of Spain is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with the king as the head of state, the prime minister as the head of the executive branch of government, an independent system of courts as the judicial power, and the Parliament as the legislative arm of government.

The key to understanding the Spanish government lies in its name: Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy. There you have the three pillars on which Spain structures its government. The Parliament gives it a democratic mandate. The Constitution defines the institutional and political organization of the country.

He can also ratify laws, dissolve the government, and call for new elections. Parliament elects the prime minister, the president of the Spanish government, who has no fixed term length. He or she conducts domestic and foreign policy and runs the country with help from the Council of Ministers. Together, the Congress of Deputies and the Senate are responsible for enacting laws and maintaining a permanent open debate between all political parties.

The senate has elected members and 57 members appointed by regional legislatures, while deputies make up the Congress. This is an independent power composed by a system of different courts local, regional, and national , with the Supreme Court or Tribunal Supremo being the highest-ranking one.