On 29N neither the regulation nor the influence stops: the parties intensify contacts to cook their programs

A royal decree-law approved by the Government during an electoral period or with the Cortes dissolved essentially follows the same scheme as at any other time, but with a very significant role for the Permanent Deputations of the Congress and the Senate. The basic framework is in Article 86 of the Spanish Constitution, the Rules of the Congress of Deputies, and the Rules of the Senate.

1. Approval and publication of the royal decree-law

• Approval by the Government: the Council of Ministers approves the royal decree-law, justifying the "extraordinary and urgent need" (art. 86 CE).
• Publication in the BOE: the royal decree-law is promulgated and comes into force under the terms provided, after its publication in the Official State Gazette.
• Immediacy of parliamentary control: the Constitution requires that it be immediately submitted to debate and a total vote in the Congress, even if the Chambers are not convened or are dissolved.

2. Who controls the decree-law during an electoral period

The key during an electoral or dissolution period is who exercises the powers of the Congress:

• Article 86 CE assigns to the Congress the validation or repeal of the decree-law within 30 days from its promulgation.
• The Rules of the Congress, in its chapter on the Permanent Deputation, provide that in cases of dissolution or expiration of the mandate of the Congress, the Permanent Deputation:
  • Assumes all powers that Article 86 CE assigns to the Congress regarding decree-laws.
• Therefore, if the decree-law is issued when the Congress is dissolved or its mandate has expired (or the new Chamber has not yet been constituted after the elections), the Permanent Deputation of the Congress is the one that debates and votes on its validation or repeal.

3. Debate and vote on validation or repeal

The specific procedure in the Congress (or its Permanent Deputation) is detailed in Article 151 of the Rules of the Congress:

• Deadline: the debate and vote on validation or repeal must take place before 30 days have passed since the promulgation of the royal decree-law.
• Call and agenda: the decree-law is included in the agenda of the Plenary of the Congress or the Permanent Deputation as soon as it has been published in the BOE.
• Presentation by the Government: a member of the Government explains the reasons for the extraordinary and urgent need.
• Debate: a total debate is held, with interventions from parliamentary groups.
• Single vote:
  • Affirmative votes mean validation.
  • Negative votes mean repeal.
• Publication of the agreement: the agreement of validation or repeal is published in the BOE.

4. Processing as a bill during an electoral period

Besides the “yes” or “no” to the decree-law, the Rules of the Congress provide that, once validated, it may be processed as a bill:

• After validation, the Presidency asks if any parliamentary group wants the decree-law to be processed as a bill.
• If the Chamber (or the Permanent Deputation, when acting in its place) agrees, the text is processed as a bill by the urgent procedure, with limitations on total amendments.
• In the periods between legislatures, Article 151 itself establishes that the Permanent Deputation can order that urgent processing of decree-laws issued between legislatures.

5. Role of the Senate and its Permanent Deputation

The Senate does not intervene in the validation (which is the exclusive competence of the Congress according to the Constitution), but it does in the possible processing as a bill:

• If the validated decree-law is processed as a bill, it follows the ordinary or urgent legislative procedure, in which the Senate can present vetoes and amendments.
• The Rules of the Senate establish that, when the Senate is dissolved or its mandate has expired, its Permanent Deputation:
  • Remains in function and its members continue to be senators until the new Senate convenes.
  • Can process as bills the decree-laws validated by the Congress if so agreed, even with the Cortes dissolved.

6. Accountability after the elections

• Once the new Congress is constituted, the Permanent Deputation must report to the Plenary on the matters dealt with and decisions made during the period it exercised the powers of the Congress, including the validations of decree-laws.
• Similarly, the Permanent Deputation of the Senate reports to the Plenary of the new Senate on the actions carried out.

In summary, during an electoral period royal decree-laws continue to be controlled within the same constitutional 30-day period; the difference is that, with the Congress (and the Senate) dissolved, the Permanent Deputations assume that control and, if applicable, initiate or continue processing as bills until the new Chambers are constituted.

According to the current Statutes of the Popular Party, the National Board of Directors (NBD) is the highest governing body of the party between national congresses. It exercises functions of political impetus, internal control, organizational management, and economic approval, as well as assuming strategic decisions in electoral matters and alliances.

Briefly, its specific powers and functions can be grouped into several blocks:

1. General political direction of the party

• Promote compliance with the programs, agreements, and guidelines approved by the national congresses of the PP, ensuring they are translated into the daily actions of the organization.
• Receive and debate reports and projects on the political situation, general strategy, and party programs, functioning as a major forum for deliberation of the national leadership and territorial leaders.
• Formulate questions and request information from the party's higher bodies (mainly the president, the secretary general, and the National Executive Committee) on any aspect of the organization and strategy.
• Develop pre-electoral and electoral action programs or at least set the broad lines guiding the PP's political offer in different electoral processes.

2. Control and supervision of the National Executive Committee

• Control the management of the National Executive Committee, which is the ordinary executive body. The National Board of Directors examines its actions, supports or corrects it, and can demand explanations for the application of approved political lines.
• Be informed of organizational changes adopted by the Executive Committee in management, coordination, and study bodies, as well as appointments of organic leaders made by the president or secretary general.
• Ensure compliance with the Statutes and other internal rules, ensuring that the executive leadership's actions remain within the statutory framework.

3. Internal organization and party regulations

• Approve regulatory norms that develop the national territorial organization of the PP, that is, internal rules that specify the structure and functioning of the party's different levels within the statutory framework.
• Approve modifications, suppressions, or consolidations related to internal organization and functioning, as long as they do not require a formal statutory reform reserved for the National Congress.
• Appoint and dismiss certain national organic positions, including the president of the Committee of Rights and Guarantees, members of that Committee, the president of the Electoral Committee, as well as secretaries general, deputy secretaries, coordinators, other secretaries, and the national treasurer, according to the Statutes.

4. Congressional and internal life functions

• Call party congresses, ordinary and, when appropriate, extraordinary. This is one of the key functions: the NBD is the body that initiates the highest internal decision-making forum.
• Approve and ratify the holding of regional, provincial, or other territorial congresses, according to the statutory design of the organization.

5. Economic and financial functions

• Approve the annual budget of the national organization of the Popular Party, setting the framework of income and expenses.
• Approve the annual accounts, exercising political control over the party's economic and financial management at the national level.

6. Exclusive powers in alliances and leadership

The Statutes expressly and exclusively assign to the National Board of Directors some decisions of special importance:

• Approve unions, federations, or coalitions with other political parties, as well as stable agreements affecting the general configuration of the PP in the party system.
• Designate the Popular Party's candidate for the Presidency of the Government of Spain in the cases provided statutorily (for example, when there is no prior ordinary congress), according to the corresponding article of the Statutes.

7. Delegation of powers

The Statutes provide that the National Board of Directors may delegate part of its powers to other party leadership bodies. For this, the following is required:

• The favorable vote of the absolute majority of its members.
• An agreement that precisely determines which powers are delegated and for how long the delegation is granted.

Overall, the National Board of Directors acts as a bridge between the National Congress and the day-to-day of the PP: it guarantees the continuity of congressional decisions, controls the Executive Committee, organizes the party's internal architecture, approves its accounts, and reserves major decisions on electoral routes, alliances, and national leadership, always within the framework literally set out in the Statutes of the Popular Party.

Jorge Buxadé Villalba (Barcelona, 1975) is a State lawyer, university professor, and one of the key leaders of Vox. He has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019 and currently heads the party's delegation in the European Parliament, where he is part of the Patriots for Europe group and acts as one of its most visible figures in Brussels and Strasbourg.

Origins and professional career

Graduated in Law from Abat Oliba CEU University, Buxadé joined in 2003 the State Lawyers Corps, assigned, among others, to the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. He has combined his civil service career with private law practice and university teaching in Administrative Law. In 2018 he served as an arbitrator of the Barcelona Arbitration Court. This legal-technical background permeates much of his political interventions, where it is common for him to cite laws, constitutional articles, and jurisprudence.

Previous militancy: from Falangism to the Popular Party

His political trajectory began in the 1990s linked to Falangist organizations. He participated in candidacies of Spanish Falange of the JONS and Authentic Spanish Falange, appearing on lists for the Parliament of Catalonia (1995) and the General Courts (1996). Later he moved to conventional right-wing politics: between 2004 and 2014 he was a member of the Popular Party. In later interviews, he has acknowledged his Falangist stage and stated he does not regret it, while he has explicitly expressed regret for his time in the PP.

Joining and internal rise in Vox

Buxadé joined Vox in 2015, when the party still had very limited presence, and participated in its consolidation in Catalonia. A year later he was second vice president of the candidacy with which Santiago Abascal renewed the party leadership, placing him in the national leadership. Since then he has held various top organizational positions:

• Member of the National Executive Committee of Vox.
• Head of the political area and later vice president of Political Action.
• European spokesperson of the party and one of the main faces of its external strategy.

Internally, he is identified as one of Vox's main strategists, especially on issues of national unity, immigration, sovereignty, security, and criticism of the European Union. He has led or participated in key party campaigns, including the 2023 regional and municipal elections, and has shared leadership weight with figures like Ortega Smith or Iván Espinosa de los Monteros before their respective departures.

MEP and head of the Vox delegation

In the 2019 European elections, Buxadé was Vox's lead candidate and won a seat in the European Parliament, marking the party's first entry. He joined the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), where he became part of the Bureau and held a vice presidency. In the 2024 European elections, he again was the top candidate and retained his seat.

With the reconfiguration of alliances in the European right, Vox left ECR and joined the new group Patriots for Europe, in which Buxadé is a Bureau member and head of Vox's Spanish delegation. From this position, he acts as a liaison between Abascal's leadership and European partners, particularly national-conservative formations with which Vox seeks coordination on migration, security, and opposition to the Green Deal.

In terms of parliamentary work, he participates in several committees and delegations, including:

• Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
• Committee on Environment, Climate and Food Safety.
• Committee on Security and Defence and a special committee on the housing crisis in the EU.
• Delegations for relations with the Maghreb, the Union for the Mediterranean, and other regional frameworks.

Lines of action and public profile

As an MEP and leader, Buxadé has focused his discourse on several constant axes:

• Immigration and borders: defense of mass deportations of irregular immigrants and denunciation of “mass immigration” as a threat to security and social cohesion, with special focus on Ceuta, Melilla, and the Campo de Gibraltar.
• Criticism of the Green Deal and EU climate policy, which he presents as an attack on the countryside and European industry; he has opposed agreements such as the EU–Mercosur deal for its impact on Spanish farmers and ranchers.
• National sovereignty and European anti-federalism: rejection of greater political integration of the EU and defense of the primacy of national parliaments and constitutions.
• Cultural and institutional battle: opposition to equality and gender policies, democratic memory, and the 2030 agenda, which he frames as an “ideological engineering” promoted from Brussels.

His public interventions, both in the European Parliament and party events, are characterized by a very combative tone against Pedro Sánchez's Government, which he has accused of leading a “criminal organization,” and against the PP, which he reproaches for agreements with socialists and European conservatives. Overall, his political trajectory outlines a path from youthful Falangism and a decade in the PP to becoming, since 2015, the main reference of Vox on the European scene and one of the architects of its hardest ideological line.