Congress Examines New CNMC Leadership: Who They Are, How Many Votes They Need, and What the Commission Will Vote On

The renewal of the CNMC Council is a mixed procedure: the Government proposes and appoints by Royal Decree, but the Congress has a limited veto power over each candidate. Law 3/2013 sets out in considerable detail the composition, term duration, and the role of Congress, but practically does not establish deadlines for the Government to initiate the renewal nor for the internal phases in the Cortes, except for the one-month deadline to veto. The Senate does not intervene in the individual appointment of council members, and if Congress remains silent, the law provides that the appointment is tacitly accepted.

Basic legal framework

The regime of the CNMC Council is established in the Law 3/2013 creating the CNMC, partially amended by the General Audiovisual Communication Law 13/2022, and developed by the Royal Decree 657/2013 (Organic Statute of the CNMC). Regarding the Government's operation, the Law 50/1997 on the Government is a reference. The internal rules of Congress are in the Regulations approved by Resolution of February 24, 1982, reformed several times, including the 2025 reform (Congress Regulations reform and additional reform). For the Senate, there are only general mentions to its regulatory reforms, such as those of 2017 and 2023 (2008 reform, RD 945/2017, 2023 reform, 2025 reform), but none assigns a specific role to the Senate in these appointments.

Composition, term, and renewal regime

According to Law 3/2013, the Council is the collegiate decision-making body of the CNMC, composed of ten members: a President, a Vice President, and eight councilors. All are senior officials, with exclusive dedication, subject to the incompatibility regime of Law 5/2006 (cited in Law 3/2013 itself).

The law expressly establishes that:

• Term: six years, without possibility of re-election.
• Renewal: partial every two years, “so that no member of the Council remains in office for more than six years”.

However, no specific deadline is set for the Government to start the renewal procedure when a term expires, nor specific legal consequences if delayed. In practice, councilors continue in office until a replacement is appointed, but this is not detailed in the available law excerpts. No further information is available in the consulted sources about sanctions or limits on delay.

Prior government phase

The procedure always starts in the Executive:

• The competent Minister (currently Economy) proposes candidates, of “recognized prestige and professional competence in the scope of the Commission's activity”.
• The Council of Ministers approves the proposal and agrees to send it to Congress for the mandatory appearance and possible veto.

Neither Law 3/2013 nor Law 50/1997 set an objective deadline for the Government to send proposals once the vacancy occurs; it is a political decision.

Parliamentary phase in Congress

Law 3/2013 precisely describes the parliamentary “filter”:

• The proposed person must make a appearance before the competent Congress committee (usually Economic Affairs or similar). The details of the format (turns, questions, etc.) come from the Congress Regulations, but in the consulted excerpts there are no specific articles for the CNMC.
• After the appearance, Congress can veto the appointment “by agreement adopted by absolute majority” of the competent committee.
• The law establishes a maximum period of one calendar month from receipt of the Government's communication for Congress to exercise that veto.
• If that month passes “without express manifestation from Congress, the corresponding appointments shall be deemed accepted”. That is, silence equals acceptance.

This is the only explicit deadline in the regulation for the parliamentary phase. No additional consequences are foreseen if the committee does not convene the appearance or does not vote: positive silence applies.

Appointment by the Government and taking office

Once the Congress control is passed (without express veto within one month), the Government proceeds with the appointment by Royal Decree, published in the BOE, in application of Law 3/2013 and the Government Law. Law 3/2013 also indicates that the CNMC President must inform the Ministry of affiliation of vacancies that occur, but without a set deadline in the available text.

The taking of office and effective start of the term are regulated in the Organic Statute approved by Royal Decree 657/2013, but in the handled excerpts no specific deadlines appear between BOE publication and taking office; it refers to the internal functioning of the body.

Subsequent parliamentary control

Besides the appointment filter, Law 3/2013 dedicates a chapter to “Transparency and responsibility”, where it specifies that the CNMC is subject to parliamentary control, mainly through periodic appearances of its President before Congress, “at least annually”. These appearances allow groups to supervise the Council's operation and, politically, pressure for renewals when mandates have expired.

The Economy Commission of Congress (currently called the Economy, Commerce and Digital Transformation Commission) exercises, in terms of supervision of regulatory bodies, the same general powers that the Congress Regulations assign to all permanent legislative Commissions, applied to the economic and financial field. It does not have a “hierarchical power” over regulators, but it does have relevant legislative and political control faculties: it processes laws that define their statute, demands information, organizes appearances, and channels parliamentary debate on their performance. The relationship with the Plenary is one of collaboration and division of functions, and its controls are limited by the autonomy and independence recognized by laws to each regulator.

General regulatory framework of the Economy Commission

The Regulations of the Congress of Deputies, published by Resolution of February 24, 1982 and successively reformed, is the basic norm defining the regime of the Commissions (regulations in the BOE; consolidated text on the Congress website: Congress Regulations).

In these Regulations:

• Article 46 (according to consolidated wording) lists the Permanent Legislative Commissions and expressly includes the Economy, Commerce and Digital Transformation Commission among them.
• Articles 40 to 45 (Chapter three, “Of the Commissions”) establish the common regime of all commissions: composition, operation, powers, and relations with the Government and other Chamber bodies.

Types of powers relevant for regulator supervision

1. Legislative powers

According to article 43 of the Regulations, “the Commissions shall consider the projects, proposals or matters entrusted to them, according to their respective competence, by the Congress Board”. This means that the Economy Commission:

• Is the ordinary body responsible for processing bill projects and proposals affecting economic regulatory bodies (Bank of Spain, CNMC, CNMV, etc.).
• Can exercise full legislative competence when the Plenary delegates to the Commissions, according to article 148 of the Regulations, debating and approving the final text that is then sent to the Senate.

Through this function, the Commission does not “executively supervise” the regulator, but it does define and modify its regulatory framework, its independence statute, and its accountability obligations.

2. Control and information powers

The core of the political supervision function is specified in article 44 of the Regulations, applicable to any permanent Commission:

• It can request, “through the Presidency of Congress”, the information and documentation it needs from the Government and Public Administrations (number 1).
• It can request the presence of Government members to inform on matters of their department (number 2), which includes policy regarding regulators.
• It can require the appearance of competent authorities and civil servants by reason of the matter (number 3) and of “other competent persons” (number 4).

In practice, this enables the Economy Commission to organize appearances of the Governor of the Bank of Spain, the CNMC president, or other regulators, either directly if they are administrative authorities, or through the competent minister when required by sectoral law.

Relationship with the Plenary and other Commissions

The Regulations establish that the Congress Board can request that, on a matter whose main competence lies with one Commission, “another or other Commissions report previously” (art. 43.2). Thus:

• The Economy Commission is usually the main commission on economic and financial supervision matters.
• It can receive reports from other Commissions (for example, Budgets, Treasury, or Ecological Transition, depending on the regulated sector).
• The Plenary retains the final political word: it can claim the final debate, approve motions, resolutions, or even laws modifying the regulators' framework.

Limits and fit with regulators' independence

Sectoral laws reinforce the idea of functional independence combined with parliamentary accountability:

• Law 13/1994, on the Autonomy of the Bank of Spain, establishes a “specific obligation to inform the General Courts and the Government on monetary policy”, so that “such institutions can regularly control and debate the monetary policy followed”, and foresees that the Courts' access to secret information is done “through the Governor of the Bank of Spain, in accordance with parliamentary Regulations” (Law 13/1994).
• Law 3/2013, creating the CNMC, indicates in its preamble that it regulates “the control that Congress and Senate will exercise over the Commission” and specifies that “parliamentary control is carried out through the appearances of the President before Congress, at least annually” (Law 3/2013).

In all these cases, the Economy Commission acts as a specialized body of Congress that channels that accountability: it organizes appearances, analyzes reports and memoranda, promotes legislative initiatives and debates. But:

• It cannot give executive orders to the regulator nor replace its technical decisions.
• Its power is political and normative: control, criticism, information requests, promotion of legal reforms or parliamentary initiatives.
• The limits are set by the Constitution, which foresees independent bodies and regulates Government-Cortes relations (Spanish Constitution), and by the laws of each regulator.

The last general elections to the Congress of Deputies in Spain were held on July 23, 2023 (23J). In those elections, the PP was the most voted force but without an absolute majority, followed by the PSOE; the rest of the state and nationalist parties completed a very fragmented Congress. For the parties you ask about, the seat distribution was: PP 137, PSOE 121, Vox 33, Sumar 31, ERC 7, and Junts 7. There have been no new general elections since then, so these are the latest valid electoral results.

23J 2023 results by party

According to the official 23J results (collected, among others, by RTVE, general press, and electoral databases such as the Ministry of the Interior), the distribution of seats in Congress for the parties you indicate was as follows:

• People's Party (PP): 137 seats. It is the first force in the Chamber, with just over 33% of the vote, but far from the absolute majority of 176 deputies. These data are reflected in compilations such as RTVE, press analysis from El País, or historical series like those at [link].
• Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE): 121 seats. Second force in votes and seats, with around 31.7% of the vote. The PP–PSOE sum concentrates most of the hemicycle, but neither reaches an absolute majority alone.
• Vox: 33 seats. It remains the third force in Congress, with just over 12% of the votes. Various subsequent news, such as poll analyses at Demócrata, explicitly take those 33 deputies as a reference for the “23J result”.
• Sumar: 31 seats. The coalition led by Yolanda Díaz entered Congress with 31 deputies and 12.3% of the vote. Several subsequent polling pieces from Demócrata compare current voting intention with those 31 seats obtained in July 2023.
• Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC): 7 seats. ERC suffers a relevant loss compared to 2019 and remains with seven deputies in the Lower Chamber; those “7 votes” of ERC are cited as part of the investiture bloc in parliamentary analyses such as this piece from Demócrata.
• Junts per Catalunya (Junts): 7 seats. Junts returns to Congress with seven deputies, key in the investiture arithmetic and the current legislature. The same article from Demócrata lists Junts as one of the Government's necessary partners with “7” seats, along with ERC, EH Bildu, PNV, BNG, CC, and Podemos.

In total, the Chamber has 350 seats and the absolute majority is set at 176 deputies. The sum of PP (137) + Vox (33) reaches 170 seats, insufficient to invest a president alone, while the bloc that supported Pedro Sánchez's investiture is articulated around the 121 PSOE deputies and the 31 of Sumar, plus those of ERC, Junts, and other nationalist and regionalist parties.

Parliamentary composition and groups

It is advisable to differentiate between electoral result and composition of parliamentary groups. The 23J sets how many deputies each label contributes to Congress, but in the XV Legislature internal movements have occurred (such as the departure of Podemos deputies from the Plurinational Group of Sumar to the Mixed Group) that affect the distribution by groups, not the number of seats each candidacy obtained on election night.

Thus, when speaking of “the deputies each mentioned parliamentary group has” in terms of the last general results, the correct reference is the seats obtained on 23J:

• Popular Group (PP): 137 seats
• Socialist Group (PSOE): 121 seats
• Vox: 33 seats (own group)
• Sumar: 31 seats (Plurinational Sumar Group in its post-election configuration)
• ERC: 7 seats (Republican Group along with other sovereigntist labels)
• Junts: 7 seats (own group, after the temporary cession of PSOE and Sumar deputies to constitute it, as Demócrata explained in this piece)

The Central Electoral Board and the Ministry of the Interior collect these results on their official portals, accessible via the Electoral Board at [link] and the infoelectoral database at [link]. The Congress itself offers structured information about the groups and deputies of the XV Legislature on its website, including data on groups such as PP, PSOE, Vox, Sumar, ERC, or Junts, in sections accessible through [link] and related ones like the voting repository at [link].

Additional references

Besides the official resources mentioned, various analyses from Demócrata and other media have taken the 23J seat distribution as a basis to assess polls and block balances: Demócrata's poll aggregator in this piece, the studies on the “investiture bloc” already cited, or parliamentary chronicles like this article and profile works like this file, among others. You can also find general context on recent electoral cycles in the compendium of recent electoral processes at [link], historical series at [link], and summaries from the Electoral Board at [link].

Finally, several Demócrata pieces use these 137–121–33–31–7–7 seats as a constant reference to compare with the polling situation of the legislature, such as the polls collected in this analysis or block comparisons in other polls published by the newspaper.