The BOE publishes the dissolution of the Cortes and calls for the elections on November 29.

After the dissolution of the Cortes Generales and the holding of elections, the Constitution and the Regulations of the Congress and the Senate foresee a fairly structured chain of procedures until the effective constitution of the new Chambers. They essentially cover the convening of the constitutive session, its development, the election of the Boards, and the subsequent formation of parliamentary groups, as well as some initial solemn acts.

1. From dissolution to the constitutive session

The dissolution of the Cortes is carried out by Royal Decree, in which the date of the elections is also set and the constitutional calendar is referred to: the Chambers must meet in a constitutive session within the period provided for in articles 68.6 and 69.6 of the Constitution (twenty-five days after the elections are held, unless the Royal Decree itself specifies another day and time within that framework).

During that interval, the electoral process takes place, the proclamation of elected officials by the electoral administration, and the resolution, if applicable, of contentious-electoral appeals. The Standing Committee of each Chamber remains in office until the constitution of the new Congress and Senate, but there is no ordinary parliamentary activity.

2. Constitutive session of the Congress

Once the elections have been held, the Congress meets in constitutive session on the day and time set in the Royal Decree of convocation. The Regulations of the Congress establish a precise scheme:

• Initial presidency (Board of age): the session is opened under the provisional presidency of the oldest deputy present, assisted by the two youngest as secretaries. This “Board of age” only acts until the definitive Board is elected.
• Initial readings: the Royal Decree of convocation, the list of elected officials, and any contentious-electoral appeals filed are read aloud, indicating which persons may be affected.
• Election of the Board of the Congress: next, the Presidency, Vice Presidencies, and Secretariats of the Chamber are elected through the voting procedures established in the Regulations. This is the governing body of the Congress from that moment.
• Oath or promise: once the Board is elected, the person holding the Presidency asks the deputies to take an oath or promise to uphold the Constitution, calling them in alphabetical order.
• Declaration of constitution: after this formula is completed, the Presidency formally declares the Congress constituted and adjourns the session.

The Presidency must officially communicate the constitution of the Congress to the King, the Senate, and the Government. Within the following fifteen days, a solemn session is scheduled to open the legislature, with the intervention of the Head of State, which has a fundamentally ceremonial character.

3. Constitutive session of the Senate

The Senate follows a similar scheme, regulated in its own Regulations:

• A constitutive session is convened on the date set in the Royal Decree of dissolution and convocation of elections.
• The initial presidency also falls to a Board of age (oldest senator and the youngest as secretaries).
• Credentials are verified, the convocation is read, and then the Board of the Senate is elected through the regulatory votes.
• Once the Presidency is elected, all senators are required to take the oath or promise to uphold the Constitution.
• The Presidency declares the Senate constituted and communicates this fact to the King, the Congress, and the Government.

4. Formation of parliamentary groups

Once the Chambers are constituted, the next major block of procedures is the constitution of parliamentary groups, key for ordinary functioning.

In the Congress, the Regulations provide that:

• Deputies, in a minimum number determined (or meeting certain seat and vote percentage requirements), may form a parliamentary group.
• The constitution of groups must be formalized within five days following the constitutive session, by written communication to the Board with the name of the group, its composition, and who acts as spokesperson.
• Those who do not join any group within the deadline are assigned to the Mixed Group.

The Senate Regulations establish similar criteria, with their own thresholds and deadlines, after the constitutive session. Here too, those who do not meet the minimum requirements or do not join another group are assigned to the Mixed Group.

5. Other initial acts

Once the Boards are elected and the groups constituted, basic organizational acts are completed:

• Constitution of the Spokespersons' Board in each Chamber, composed of the spokespersons of the groups.
• Appointment of members of parliamentary committees, in proportion to the strength of each group.
• Adoption of initial agreements on calendar, sessions, and possible regulatory reforms.

With this set of procedures — formal constitution, election of Boards, oath or promise, formation of groups, and basic internal organization — the new Chambers are fully constituted and ordinary parliamentary activity of the legislature can begin.

In the Spanish constitutional system, the calling of general elections is inseparably linked to the power of dissolution of the Cortes Generales, which is essentially exercised at the initiative of the President of the Government. This power is mainly regulated in Article 115 of the Spanish Constitution (CE), in connection with other provisions such as Articles 68.4, 99, 113, 116 and electoral legislation.

1. Holder of the initiative and formal procedure

Art. 115.1 CE establishes that:

• The dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes Generales is agreed by the King, but at the proposal of the President of the Government and after deliberation of the Council of Ministers.
• That proposal must necessarily express the calling of elections, since dissolution opens the way to new elections.

In practice, this means that the President of the Government holds a decisive political initiative power: without his proposal, the King cannot dissolve the Chambers or call early elections. The decision is formalized by a Royal Decree of dissolution and call for elections, countersigned by the President himself, who assumes the political and legal responsibility for the act.

2. Temporal and material limits to dissolution

This power is not unlimited. The Constitution introduces several checks and restrictions on the President's ability to trigger early elections:

• Prohibition to dissolve during a pending motion of censure (art. 115.2 CE): if a motion of censure has been presented — which must be voted on and requires an absolute majority of the Congress, art. 113 CE — the President cannot avoid it by dissolving the Chamber. Until the Congress votes on the motion, the dissolution power is “frozen.”
• Minimum interval of one year between dissolutions (art. 115.3 CE): a new dissolution cannot be proposed before one year has passed since the previous one, except in the singular case of automatic dissolution due to investiture failure (art. 99.5 CE). This limit aims to prevent abusive or tactical use of repeated elections.
• Exceptional states (art. 116.5 CE): while a state of alarm, exception, or siege is declared, the Congress cannot be dissolved. In these cases, certain powers pass to the Standing Committee, but the President cannot resort to dissolution as a political instrument.
• Relation to the ordinary legislature (art. 68.4 CE): the legislature of the Congress lasts four years from its election. The President may bring forward dissolution within that period, but if he does not, the Chamber is automatically dissolved upon completion of the legislature and elections are called according to electoral legislation.

3. Connection with investiture and automatic dissolution

The Constitution clearly distinguishes between “optional” dissolution, which depends on the President's political initiative (art. 115 CE), and “automatic” dissolution provided for in art. 99.5 CE:

• If two months pass from the first investiture vote without any candidate obtaining the confidence of the Congress, the King dissolves both Chambers and calls new elections, after countersignature by the President of the Congress.
• In this automatic dissolution, the decision does not depend on the President of the Government, but on an objective constitutional mechanism linked to investiture failure.

Furthermore, by system design, it is understood that a caretaker Government after elections cannot propose a new early dissolution: its role is limited to ordinary management while a new President is being invested.

4. Relation with the motion of censure and parliamentary confidence

The President's power to trigger early elections is balanced with other instruments of political responsibility:

• The motion of censure (art. 113 CE) allows the Congress to withdraw its confidence from the Government and appoint a new President by absolute majority. As indicated, while a motion is pending, the President cannot dissolve the Chambers.
• The question of confidence (art. 112 CE) is an initiative of the President himself to test parliamentary support. If lost, the Government must resign and the investiture process reopens; it is not a direct mechanism for calling elections, although politically it may lead to a subsequent dissolution.

5. Election dates

Finally, although the Constitution does not go into detail, the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime specifies that, once the decree of dissolution and call is published, general elections must be held within a set period (currently, 54 days from the call). That is, the President activates the process with his dissolution proposal, but from that moment the calendar is strictly regulated.

In summary, the President of the Government has a broad political power to propose the dissolution of the Cortes and the calling of general elections, but that power is framed by temporal limits, protection of parliamentary control mechanisms (motion of censure, exceptional states), and automatic rules in case of investiture deadlock.

The distribution of Congress deputies by constituencies in general elections is not a discretionary decision of the Government, but is strongly predetermined by the Constitution and the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG). The basic norm sets the framework (number of deputies, type of constituency, and proportional representation) and the LOREG details the specific procedure to assign seats to each province and to Ceuta and Melilla based on population.

1. Basic constitutional requirements

The starting point is Article 68 of the Spanish Constitution, which establishes several requirements:

• Representative chamber and total number of deputies: the Congress is composed of a number of deputies between a minimum of 300 and a maximum of 400; the exact number is set by an organic law.
• Electoral constituency: the constituency for the election of deputies is the province, and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla have specific treatment as their own constituencies.
• Proportional representation: the election of deputies must be carried out with criteria of proportional representation, which conditions both the system of seat distribution among provinces and the subsequent assignment of seats to candidacies.
• Reserved to organic law: the detailed regulation of the electoral system (including the distribution of deputies by constituency) must be done through an organic law (art. 81 CE), which requires an absolute majority of the Congress for its approval or modification.

Any rule that sets or modifies the distribution of deputies by constituencies must respect these limits: organic rank, province as base, Ceuta and Melilla as own constituencies, and maintenance of a proportional logic.

2. Regulation in the LOREG: total number and minimums per constituency

The Organic Law 5/1985, of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), specifies this framework in its provisions on elections to the Congress. In summary:

• Total number of deputies: the LOREG sets that the Congress is composed of 350 deputies, within the constitutional range.
• Constituencies: for the election of deputies, each province constitutes an electoral constituency, and Ceuta and Melilla are each their own constituencies.
• Minimum per province: each province is assigned a minimum initial of two deputies, regardless of its population.
• Ceuta and Melilla: each of these autonomous cities is represented by one deputy elected in its own constituency.

These rules (total number, provincial constituency, minimums, and seats for Ceuta and Melilla) can only be altered by reforming the LOREG, that is, through a new organic law that also respects constitutional limits.

3. Assignment of the remaining seats based on population

Once reserved:

• two deputies to each province, and
• one deputy to Ceuta and one to Melilla,

the LOREG establishes the procedure to distribute the remaining 248 seats among the provinces based on their population:

• A distribution quota is calculated by dividing the total legal population of the peninsular and insular provinces by those 248 seats.
• Each province is assigned as many additional deputies as result from dividing its population by that quota, taking the integer part of the quotient.
• The seats still unassigned are distributed one by one to the provinces with the highest decimal fraction in that division.

This calculation is performed for each call using the official population data (legal population) in force, and the Royal Decree of convocation must specify the number of deputies to be elected in each constituency, according to the result of that operation.

4. Limits on variation of representation

Neither the Constitution nor the LOREG set a maximum numerical percentage deviation between provinces in terms of “inhabitants per seat.” The limit is material:

• The principle of equality of suffrage and proportionality must be respected, so that differences in inhabitants per deputy between constituencies are not manifestly disproportionate or arbitrary.
• Any reform that alters the total number of deputies, minimums per province, or distribution rules must be done through an organic law and may be reviewed by the Constitutional Court if it is considered to violate the equality of the vote or the prohibition of arbitrariness.

In practice, therefore, the distribution of deputies by constituency in each general election is obtained by applying a regulated mechanism (that of the LOREG) to updated population data, within the constitutional framework described.