The government of Spain () is the central government which leads the executive branch and the General State Administration of the Kingdom of Spain.
The Government consists of the Prime Minister and the Ministers; the prime minister has the overall direction of the Ministers and can appoint or terminate their appointments freely and all of them belong to the supreme decision-making body, known as the Council of Ministers. The Government is responsible before the Parliament (), and more precisely before the Congress of the Deputies, a body which elects the Prime Minister or dismisses them through a motion of censure. This is because Spain is a parliamentary system established by the Constitution of 1978.
Its fundamental regulation is placed in Title IV of the Constitution, as well as in Title V of that document, with respect to its relationship with the , and in Law 50/1997, of 27 November, of the Government. According to Article 97 of the Constitution and Article 1.1 of the Government Act, "the Government directs domestic and foreign policy, the civil and military administration and the defense of the State. It exercises the executive function and the regulatory regulation according to the Constitution and the laws".
The current prime minister is Pedro Sánchez, who took office on 2 June 2018. He is the leader of the Socialist Workers' Party.
The Government is occasionally referred to by the metonymy Moncloa, due to the fact that the residence of the Prime Minister, the Palace of Moncloa, is also the headquarters of the Government.
Principles
The Government's performance is governed by the following operating principles:
Principle of presidential direction: The Prime Minister directs the Ministers and can appoint or dismiss them freely. Principle of responsibility: The Prime Minister responds politically to the Congress of Deputies for the action of the Government. The eventual cessation of the Prime Minister implies the cessation of the Government. Principle of collegiality: The Government, understood as Council of Ministers, is a collegiate body composed of a plurality of members of the Government. Principle of solidarity: The Government responds in solidum for the action of each one of the members of the Government. Departmental principle: The members of the Government, as well as members of this collegiate body, are also the heads of a department in charge of a more or less homogeneous area of competence.
Government in Parliament
The Kingdom of Spain is a constitutional monarchy in which executive decisions are made by the Government. More specifically, the Spanish Constitution describes Spain's form of government as "Monarquía parlamentaria," or parliamentary monarchy, in which the monarch acts as a moderator rather than a source of executory authority. Spain possesses an asymmetric bicameral parliament, called the "," composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. While both the Congress and Senate propose legislation, albeit by different procedural mechanisms, the Government has the right to be consulted for such proposals. The Government may also propose law directly. A Government-sponsored bill is known as a proyecto de ley, contrasting with a proposición de ley which is offered by a house of parliament.
Neither the prime minister nor the ministers need to be members of parliament, but the Government must account to both the Senate and Congress every week in a parliamentary meeting known as a sesión de control (control session) (Part V § 108). Questioning minor-rank ministers, such as Secretaries of State or Under Secretaries, must be done in Parliamentary Committees. While the prime minister is typically elected from the members of Congress, the current prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was not a member of either chamber for the first year of his premiership.
Under the parliamentary system, the Government is required to maintain the confidence of the Congress of Deputies. In the absence of such confidence, the Government may fall or prove unable to pass legislation. There are two procedures to ascertain the Congress's confidence in the Government: the motion of no-confidence (Part V § 113), by which members of parliament can ask the Congress to rescind its confidence in the prime minister and to elect another, and the question of confidence (Part V § 112), by which the prime minister asks the Congress if it supports the Government's political programs generally or a specific piece of legislation. A loss by the Government in either case may result in the removal of the prime minister.