BOE today, July 12: why there is no edition this Sunday (and which Sundays there could be)

In the case of Spain, for a regulation to be published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), it must first pass all the political and legal-parliamentary approval phases (depending on the type of regulation: law or royal decree-law) and only then is it sent to the BOE for official publication. Regarding the internal details of the strictly editorial procedures within the State Agency BOE and, in particular, about the specific steps that lead to an extraordinary edition versus an ordinary one, the available sources only provide general information and not specifics. Nevertheless, the prior political-legal process can be described precisely and the extent of the information about the publication can be delineated.

1. Political and legal-parliamentary phase of laws

For ordinary and organic laws, the sources describe in detail the parliamentary procedure required before their publication in the BOE. In summary, a law follows these stages until it is approved:

• Presentation of the initiative: it can be a bill (promoted by the Government and approved in the Council of Ministers before going to the Congress) or a private member's bill (presented by deputies, parliamentary groups, the Senate, autonomous assemblies, or popular initiative).
• Consideration (private members' bills): the Plenary of the Congress decides whether to admit the private member's bill for processing.
• Assignment to committee: the Board of the Congress refers the initiative to the competent committee by subject matter.
• Amendment phase: parliamentary groups may submit amendments, both total (in some cases) and partial.
• Committee debate: the committee discusses the text and amendments and prepares a report.
• Debate and vote in the Plenary of the Congress: the report and live amendments are debated and a final text is voted on.
• Referral to the Senate: the approved text is sent to the Senate, which may approve it, amend it, or veto it.
• Return to the Congress: if there is a veto or amendments, the Congress decides whether to accept the amendments or override the veto with the required majorities.
• Sanction and promulgation: once the text is finalized, the King sanctions and promulgates it.

The sources indicate that after this sanction and promulgation, the law is published in the BOE and comes into force on the date set in the law itself or, failing that, 20 days after its publication. However, the internal BOE procedure or when an extraordinary edition is chosen is not detailed.

2. Political and legal phase of royal decree-laws

The case of the royal decree-law is different because it is a regulation with the force of law issued directly by the Government in situations of extraordinary and urgent need, without going through the ordinary legislative procedure beforehand. According to the available information, its essential features are:

• Approval by the Government: the Council of Ministers approves the royal decree-law.
• Immediate entry into force: the decree-law comes into force quickly once published in the BOE.
• Parliamentary control: the Congress must debate and vote on it within a maximum of 30 days to validate or repeal it; it may also choose to process it as a bill.

Again, it is indicated that the decree-law is published in the BOE as a condition for its entry into force, but no concrete data is provided about the administrative or editorial chain within the State Agency BOE or about the specific criteria to decide whether its publication is in an ordinary or extraordinary issue.

3. Editorial phases and use of the extraordinary BOE: limits of the information

The aspect you raise — the internal procedures for a regulation to be published specifically in an extraordinary BOE, as well as the specific bodies involved in each step of that editorial phase — is not detailed in the consulted sources. Only general information is provided, namely:

• The legislative procedure culminates with the sanction and promulgation (in the case of laws) or with the approval by the Government (in the case of royal decree-laws).
• From that moment, the regulation is published in the BOE, without breaking down the internal administrative steps of the State Agency BOE.

Therefore, there is no specific information about:

• Which specific Government or Head of State body formally sends the regulation to the BOE.
• Which technical units of the BOE are involved in preparing the text, its layout, or validation.
• What objective criteria or what type of resolutions determine the use of an extraordinary edition versus an ordinary one, beyond the obvious fact that they must be situations of special urgency or relevance.

In summary, the political and legal-parliamentary phases that allow a regulation to exist and must be published in the BOE are known in detail, but no further information is available in the consulted sources about the specific editorial procedures or the operational difference between publication in an ordinary BOE and an extraordinary one.

According to current legislation, the powers of the "Official State Gazette" (BOE) and the State Agency Official State Gazette are clearly defined, but the consulted sources do not include the specific articles listing the functions of the Director of the Agency, so it is not possible to detail precisely their specific powers. What can be stated is that the Director performs their functions within the general framework established by Royal Decree 181/2008, regulating the BOE, as amended, and by the general regime of public bodies provided in Law 40/2015, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector. Below is an explanation of the regulatory and functional framework that conditions and delimits their powers, clarifying where the available information ends.

Regulatory framework of the BOE and the State Agency

The BOE is mainly regulated by Royal Decree 181/2008, of February 8, organizing the official daily "Official State Gazette", which has been amended, among others, by Royal Decree 385/2015 and Royal Decree 327/2021. These regulations govern:

• What is published in the BOE (general provisions, acts, resolutions, announcements, etc.).
• Who orders and controls the publication: the Ministry of the Presidency, through the Technical General Secretariat–Government Secretariat.
• Who edits and disseminates the BOE: the State Agency Official State Gazette.

Law 40/2015, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector (Law 40/2015), establishes the general regime of state public bodies (including state agencies), regulating their bodies, delegation of powers, publication of acts in the BOE, agreements, and other operational aspects. However, in the consulted excerpts of Law 40/2015, there is no specific mention of the Director of the State Agency BOE, but general rules about administrative bodies, delegations, and publication in official gazettes.

Institutional functions framing the Director

Royal Decree 181/2008, in the consolidated text with amendments from Royal Decree 385/2015 and Royal Decree 327/2021, distributes the main functions as follows:

• Ministry of the Presidency: “the ordering and control of the publication of provisions and administrative acts that must be inserted in the ‘Official State Gazette’, especially ensuring the order of priority of insertions, safeguarding the competences of the different Administration bodies, and compliance with the necessary formal requirements in each case”, being able to decide on extraordinary issues.
• State Agency Official State Gazette: “the edition, publication, and dissemination of the official daily ‘Official State Gazette’.”
• Submission of originals: texts of provisions and acts from sections I, II, III, and the Constitutional Court are sent to the Technical General Secretariat–Government Secretariat, while announcements from sections IV and V, notification announcements, and documents of the Supplement of the Single Judicial Edict Board are sent directly to the State Agency BOE.

All this implies that the Director of the BOE acts in a context where the Ministry of the Presidency sets and controls the normative flow to be published, and the Agency, under their direction, materially executes the edition and dissemination, manages originals, guarantees authenticity, custody, and accessibility of contents, and operates the electronic headquarters and associated registries (regulated, for example, in the Resolution creating the electronic headquarters of the State Agency BOE, [link]).

Specific powers of the Director: limits of available information

In the typical configuration of state public bodies, the figure of the Director is the executive body that directs the Agency and executes the agreements of its governing bodies. However, for the State Agency Official State Gazette, this is specified in specific statutes, approved by royal decree, where the functions, powers, appointment system, and legal regime of the Director are detailed.

In the consulted trace, regulations related to the BOE and the general regime of public bodies (such as Law 40/2015 and Law 11/2020 as it modifies it), as well as provisions on publications and administrative bodies (including references to the Government Secretariat and mandatory publication in the BOE of delegations of powers, agreements, or sectoral conference agreements), have been identified. Various types of provisions citing the BOE or the Agency have also been reviewed, among others:

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• [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link], [link].

However, the text of the statutes of the State Agency Official State Gazette nor the specific provision listing the Director's powers have not been located in these sources. Therefore, it is not possible, with legal rigor, to list their functions one by one (for example, regarding legal representation, approval of internal resolutions, budget or personnel management) without speculation.

In summary, current legislation places the Director of the BOE as the highest executive responsible of the State Agency that edits, publishes, and disseminates the official daily, within the framework set by the Ministry of the Presidency and Law 40/2015. No further information is available in the consulted sources to detail article by article their specific powers.

In Spain, a state regulation with the force of law comes into force when it has been fully published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) and the entry into force period established by the regulation itself is met or, failing that, the general period of the Civil Code. The Constitution requires publicity of regulations and legal certainty, and the Civil Code specifies how the validity periods are calculated. The BOE's own regime, regulated by the Royal Decree on its organization, guarantees that the publication is official and accessible. From there, the key is: express date of entry into force, or application of the supplementary period of twenty calendar days.

Constitutional framework: publicity and legal certainty

The Spanish Constitution, in its article 9.3, expressly guarantees the publicity of regulations, the non-retroactivity of unfavorable penal provisions, legal certainty, and the prohibition of arbitrariness by public authorities, according to the text of the Spanish Constitution. This publicity is articulated, for state regulations, through the BOE as the official gazette of the State.

Additionally, the Constitution binds citizens and public authorities to the Constitution and the rest of the legal system, which implies that the entry into force of regulations must be clear and predictable to respect legal certainty.

General rule of the Civil Code: vacatio legis of 20 days

The basic regime is in the Preliminary Title of the Civil Code. The current text of article 2, according to the Civil Code, establishes:

• Supplementary entry into force: “Laws shall enter into force twenty days after their full publication in the ‘Official State Gazette’, unless otherwise provided.” This period is known as vacatio legis.
• Repeal and retroactivity: the same provision adds that laws are only repealed by later ones and that they have no retroactive effect unless otherwise provided, which again connects with the legal certainty of article 9.3 CE.

Article 5 of the Civil Code (in the same Preliminary Title) regulates the civil calculation of periods, also applicable to entry into force:

• If the period is fixed “by days”, the initial day is excluded and counting begins the next day.
• If the period is fixed “by months or years”, it is counted from date to date, expiring on the last equivalent day or, if none, the last day of the month.
• In civil calculation, non-working days are not excluded, so the twenty days of article 2 are calendar days.

Determination of the date in the regulation's own text

Article 2 of the Civil Code allows that “unless otherwise provided.” This means the legislator can:

• Set a specific date: for example, “this law shall enter into force on January 1, 2027.” There is no supplementary vacatio: that exact date applies.
• Set a different period: for example, “it shall enter into force six months after its publication in the BOE.” Article 5 CC applies for calculating those six months.
• Use formulas like “it shall enter into force the day after its publication”: this is fully valid; the day of publication is excluded and the law is enforceable from 0:00 the following day.

In all cases, the requirement is that the formula is sufficiently clear so that any legal operator can determine, without reasonable doubt, the moment when validity begins.

Silence of the regulation or ambiguous formulas

If the regulation says nothing about its entry into force, the supplementary rule of article 2 CC applies automatically: twenty calendar days from its full publication in the BOE, counted according to article 5.

If the regulation uses imprecise formulas (for example, vague references to “its immediate application” without specifying a date), doctrine and case law tend to:

• Redirect the interpretation to the scheme of articles 2 and 5 CC, whenever possible.
• Resolve doubts in favor of legal certainty and predictability, according to article 9.3 CE.

In extreme cases of true ambiguity or contradiction, application problems may arise that are resolved through judicial interpretation or, if applicable, by legislative reform or error correction.

Role of the BOE and formal guarantees

The BOE is regulated by regulation (for example, by Royal Decree 181/2008, organizing the official daily, and its amendments, such as Royal Decree 385/2015 and Royal Decree 327/2021), which organize sections, format, and electronic edition. Although these royal decrees do not change the rule of article 2 CC, they do ensure:

• That the publication is official, complete, and reliable.
• That the publication date is clearly determined, allowing the entry into force periods to be applied without doubt.

In summary, the legal requirements are: full and official publication in the BOE, determination (express or supplementary) of the entry into force date according to the Civil Code, and respect for the constitutional principles of publicity and legal certainty.