- The new Government All the ministers of the new Government of Pedro Sánchez
- 23 members. Pedro Sánchez's austerity does not begin with the Government
From 1979 to today, Spain has had 162 men and 55 women in its governments. Until this year, there had only been members of three parties in the Council of Ministers: 117 of the PSOE, 55 of the PP, 43 of the UCD and two that were in the UCD Government and then repeated with another formation. Now the five members of United We can join. In addition, of course, of the abundant independents (members who were not affiliated with any party at the time of entering the Government): in the last cabinet of Pedro Sánchez there were five.
The longest-standing member has been Mariano Rajoy , with 13 years and 9 months sitting on the Council of Ministers. From 2011 to 2018 he was Chief Executive, but before that he had different responsibilities with José María Aznar, from the Vice Presidency to the ministries of the Presidency, Interior, Public Administrations, Education, Culture and Sports, as well as being a spokesperson. He is followed by another former president, Felipe González, in his case with 13 years and 5 months as chief executive.
Former presidents apart, the ministers who have been in government for the longest are those who accompanied González in almost all of his executives: Javier Solana, Narcís Serra and Carlos Solchaga . In the PP, the throne is occupied by Christopher Montoro , the only one next to Rajoy who was in the two stages of the popular in power.
The general picture says that six out of 10 members of the Government had studied law ; that 60% came from the Public Administration or the University ; and that 62 of the 217 were from Madrid , 13 from Valencia and 12 from Barcelona.
The average age to join a government for the first time is 47 years . The seven presidents were for the first time with an age between 40 and 52 years. The youngest government member record is shared by two women - Bibiana Aido and Irene Montero. And the oldest member at the time of his first appointment was occupied so far by Isabel Celaá, but from tomorrow it will be for Manuel Castells.
Let's see the details.
70% have never worked in the private sector
The public sector and political professionals reign at pleasure. Of the members of the governments between 1979 and 2020, 60% came from the Public Administration or the University. The policy was the main previous occupation of 20%.
70% of ministers until 2015 had never worked in the private sector, as revealed by research published in this newspaper.
The Government that Pedro Sánchez formed in June 2018, after the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy, changed some dynamics but maintained the essence: almost two out of every three members of its Executive had a place in the Public Administration.
"The functioning of politics is the other side of the politicization of public service," explains Victor Lapuente , a political scientist and professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg.
The Spanish case is, in this sense, exceptional. "In Spain we have a very high percentage of political officials , and this separates us from the rest of the countries except, perhaps, France," Lapuente details.
Senior officials have the advantage of knowing the State Administration, but there is more. "There is much talk about the ease of being absent from the position, but there is one thing that is also fundamental: the positions of political designation," says Ignacio Jurado , professor of Political Science at the Carlos III University of Madrid.
The civil service structure, Jury explains, encourages politicization. While the opposite is the case in countries like the United Kingdom - the prime minister appoints a very small team and the high civil servant has a high degree of independence - in Spain the high levels in the Public Administration depend largely on political affinities .
And although not everything is negative in the Spanish model - "there is a positive part, which is the opening of positions to the whole world," Lapuente points out - there are sensitive issues. "The problem is that there are things that cannot be measured. If the first three or four levels of a ministry are politicized, it is likely that the fifth and sixth levels are also politicized." Lapuente adds that the lack of transparency and the nature of the civil servant in Spain contribute to the fact that, although it is an informal way, political affiliation matters.
Ministers by Law
Of the seven presidents that Spain has had in the last 40 years, all but Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo had studied a career in Social Sciences; In five of the six cases that career was Law: Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González, José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy. Pedro Sánchez has a degree in Economics.
In line with the general trend, 14 of the 23 members of the new Government of Pedro Sánchez have law studies. Most of the cabinet has careers in the field of social and economic sciences. In this sense, María Jesús Montero, who studied Medicine and Surgery; Irene Montero, who did Psychology; and Pedro Duque, aeronautical and space engineer.
The law career among the members of the Government.
21st century parity
The number of women was one of the highlights of the Government formed by Pedro Sánchez in June 2018 . Following the trail of the last socialist president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, he wanted to make the flag of equality and Sánchez formed a team with 61% of ministers , a female representation unknown to date that placed Spain at very high levels worldwide . Not even the Scandinavian countries, referents in parity issues, exceeded it.
It was foreseeable that, in his second Government, Sanchez maintained the high presence of women, especially in a coalition in which the other party, United We Can, also wants to be a reference of feminism. "It has become a sensitive issue in Spain and a hallmark of the PSOE Government ," says political scientist Ignacio Jurado. "Although the part of feminism, which along with Europeanism had been its two standards, has been more absent than I expected in the investiture speech. But it was difficult to have backtracking in this regard because, in addition, it is something easy to present ".
In the new Sánchez Government, without telling him, there are 11 men and 11 women . Of the four vice presidencies, three are occupied by women.
The first woman at the head of a ministry was Soledad Becerril , of UCD, in 1981. Since then, Spain has had 55 women in its different governments. The majority, as of 2004 . The Zapatero Government in the eighth legislature was the first to have the same number of ministers as ministers. Until then, the female representation record had only reached one third of the total. "Compared to countries of reference such as the Scandinavians, where the trend has been more gradual, ours has been more accelerated," says Jury.
The distinction between men's ministries and women's ministries has also been left behind. Some of the milestones in this regard were the election of Margarita Mariscal de Ghent as Minister of Justice of the PP in 1996, that of Ana Palacio as head of Foreign Affairs of the PP in 2002, that of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega as First Vice President of the PSOE in 2004 or that of Carme Chacón as head of the PSOE Defense in 2008. In the latter case, being pregnant.
In 2020, the Interior portfolio is the only one that has never belonged to a woman.
Repeaters
Before being president in 2011, Mariano Rajoy had been a minister in the two Aznar governments . First, of Public Administrations. In the same legislature, of Education and Culture. Later, he was vice president and minister of the Interior, Presidency and spokesperson. For a few days, he even served as Minister of Economy and Finance, replacing Rodrigo Rato.
Cristóbal Montoro , minister in the two legislatures in which Rajoy was president, also had previous experience in the Government, although always in the area of Finance. Others who have returned several legislatures afterwards have been Pedro Solbes, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba or Josep Borrell.
Portfolio changes are very common. More exceptional is being a minister with more than one party. In 40 years of democracy, there have been only two cases: that of Francisco Fernández Ordonez , Minister of Justice with UCD and Foreign Affairs with the PSOE; and Rafael Arias-Salgado , minister in various areas with UCD and Promotion with the PP.
Origin: Madrid
It is not unknown to anyone that geography, and more specifically, geographic centrality, are key in political recruitment in Spain.
The people of Madrid are overrepresented in governments. While Madrid represents around 13% of the Spanish population, it is the origin of 28.6% of the members of the government. Not counting those who, despite being born in other places, made early life in the capital.
There are other overrepresented regions, such as Castilla y León or the Basque Country. And there are more regions that, despite assuming a high percentage of the population, are the origin of a small percentage of government positions. It is the case of Andalusia, Catalonia or the Valencian Community.
The origin of the members of the Government.
Party people
In the first Sánchez Government, seven of the 17 ministers and ministers were out of the party at the time prior to their appointment. As Professor Rodríguez Teruel pointed out then, the situation was not as strange in a political context as the current one: "When the head of Government is in a complicated situation - by a parliamentary minority, by criticism or by the need to reinforce his figure - he usually names more independent ministers, "the author of the book The Ministers of Democratic Spain explained to EL MUNDO.
Sanchez's first government stood out for the high number of outsiders . Until then, Zapatero held the record of independent ministers , with 17 without a PSOE card of the 40 that passed through his two cabinets. Rajoy came to have three independent ministers in his last term, his party record. One of them was Escolano, one of the shortest ministers to Màxim Huerta.
The broadest government since the Transition
Pedro Sánchez will lead the first coalition government of the current Spanish democracy and, therefore, his Cabinet will be one of the most numerous: 23 members joining president, vice-presidents and ministers. Only the offices of Adolfo Suárez, framed in the context of the Transition and with a UCD in which the different political families multiplied, exceeded 20 members.
That coalition governments are more extensive seems reasonable. "It is normal that to achieve proportionality you expand ministries," political scientist Ignacio Jurado points out in the same vein. This means, among other things, a greater expense. "And, potentially, more reconciliation problems, because many policies are interministerial. For example, the Law on Protection against Child Violence [whose preliminary draft was approved by the Government at the end of the year] requires Health, Justice and Public Administration powers."
"In Spain we have a silos government problem: very hierarchical institutions, but with very little communication between them. It is not easy to get collaboration between administrations, and with more than one party in the Government it is possible that this characteristic is accentuated "concludes Lapuente.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- Spain
- PSOE
- Pedro Sanchez
- Mariano Rajoy
- Madrid
- Irene Montero
- Rodrigo Rato
- Valencia
- United We Can
- Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba
- United Kingdom
- Barcelona
- Portugal
- We can
- Adolfo Suarez
- Officials
- Catalonia
- Isabel Celaá
- Ceuta
- IU
- Jorge Fernandez Diaz
- Europe
- Christopher Montoro
- Melilla
- Basque Country
- PP
- Miguel Boyer
- Carme Chacón
- José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
- Josep Borrell
- World
- Jose Maria Aznar
- Max Huerta
- France
- Felipe Gonzalez
InvestiduraThe Andalusian PSOE claims to have "absolute tranquility" by the Pedro Sánchez pact with ERC
JudgmentAlso asks Urkullu if he will assume responsibility for the Miguel case
Politics Pedro Sánchez loses weight in every circle of power of the European Union