Spain marks 4 years without the State of the Nation Debate: installed in the anomaly

The reform of the Congress Regulations that incorporates, among other issues, changes to the functioning of the Chamber is already approved in Congress and with the text definitively closed. According to the official schedule of the Proposal to reform the Regulations (file 410/000007), the parliamentary processing in Congress concluded on September 3, 2025, with the publication of the approved text. From there, the only pending steps are of a formal and external nature to Parliament: publication in the BOE (Official State Gazette) (if it has not already occurred) and the consequent entry into force on the date established by the reform itself. There are no longer any pending procedures for debate or voting in Plenary or committee specifically linked to that reform.

1. Identification of the processed initiative

The initiative referred to by the sources is the “Proposal to reform the Regulations of the Congress of Deputies”, with parliamentary identifier 410/000007, presented by the Socialist, Plurinational SUMAR, Basque (EAJ‑PNV), Junts per Catalunya, Euskal Herria Bildu, Mixed, and Republican Groups. The original text was published in the Official Bulletin of the General Courts on April 1, 2025, accessible in this initial BOCG. The initiative's file can be consulted on the Congress website at this initiative file, as well as in the section of legislative proposals of Congress at this other link.

In the fragment of the text accessed, article 82.2 (remote voting) and article 98 (regime of parliamentary media) are expressly reformed, but the available sources do not explicitly mention the regulation of the annual periodicity of the State of the Nation Debate. Therefore, it cannot be confirmed from these documents whether that specific issue is included among the reformed articles, although it could be part of other provisions of the final text not appearing in the consulted excerpt. No further information is available in the consulted sources about the articles related to the Debate.

2. Processing status: what has already been done

From the official schedule of initiative 410/000007, it follows that the special procedure for reforming the Regulations (which requires qualified majorities and a vote on the entirety) is completely completed in Congress:

• Consideration in Plenary on May 20, 2025, approved with 176 votes in favor, 170 against, and 0 abstentions.
• Amendments to the entirety, debated and voted in Plenary on July 8, 2025; they were rejected (166 yes / 174 no / 0 abstentions), so the reform continued its processing.
• Processing by urgency procedure agreed on July 11, 2025.
• Amendments to the articles, published on July 16 and 17, 2025, and debate in the Regulations Committee on July 17, 2025.
• Report of the Subcommittee, published on July 22, 2025, accessible in this subcommittee report.
• Opinion of the Regulations Committee, published on July 30, 2025 (committee opinion), and the remittance of the opinion agreed on July 31 (remittance agreement).
• Plenary of July 22, 2025: vote on the opinion and final vote on the entirety, both approved by 177 votes in favor, with 170 and 171 against respectively, no abstentions.
• Publication of the definitively approved text on September 3, 2025, according to the reference associated with this final record. On this date, the initiative is already listed as “Concluded (publication of the approved text)”.

It is worth remembering that the Congress Regulations is a rule that each Chamber approves by itself; it is not processed before the Senate nor as an ordinary law. Therefore, once the vote on the entirety has been held and the reform published, the parliamentary phase can be considered closed.

3. Pending procedures: what remains to be done

Based on the available official information, the only pending procedures are no longer parliamentary, but of a formal nature and legal effectiveness:

• Publication in the BOE of the reform of the Regulations approved in 2025, through the corresponding “Reform of the Regulations of the Congress of Deputies” agreed by the Chamber. There are precedents of previous reforms published in the Official State Gazette, such as those of 2012 (2012 reform) and 2023 (2023 reform), but the sources do not yet confirm the specific publication of the 2025 reform.
• Entry into force of the reform, on the date established by its final provision (usually, the agreement itself sets whether it enters into force the same day of publication in the BOE or after X days). Without that reference, it is not possible to specify the exact day; the sources only indicate that “the definitively approved text has been published, which will be the one that finally enters into force.” No further information is available in the consulted sources.
• Practical application of the new provisions: regarding, if applicable, the annual periodicity of the State of the Nation Debate, its implementation would depend on the Board and the Presidency of Congress adjusting the calendars and calls to the new regulatory framework.

In summary, there are no longer any pending voting or committee procedures in Congress regarding this reform of the Regulations; what remains is basically the phase of publication in the BOE and effective deployment of the new rules, including, if indeed included in the final articles, the regulation of the annual periodicity of the State of the Nation Debate.

4. Other relevant official documents

Besides those already mentioned, file 410/000007 has various intermediate publications in the Official Bulletin of the General Courts accessible here: BOCG-15-B-200-2, BOCG-15-B-200-3, BOCG-15-B-200-4, BOCG-15-B-200-5, BOCG-15-B-200-6, BOCG-15-B-200-7, BOCG-15-B-200-8, BOCG-15-B-200-9, BOCG-15-B-200-10, BOCG-15-B-200-11 and BOCG-15-B-200-12, as well as successive updates of the initiative file in these intermediate records.

The State of the Nation Debate (or on the orientation of the Government's general policy) does not have a specific provision in the Congress Regulations, but is organized applying the general rules on sessions, agenda, and debates. Within this framework, the Prime Minister has the political initiative to propose its holding and the general faculty to intervene when requested, while the formal convocation, setting of the agenda, and distribution of times correspond to the Chamber's bodies, especially the Presidency of Congress and the Board of Spokespersons. The Board acts as a political coordination body that agrees on the content and structure of the plenary, and the Presidency formalizes the convocation and orders the debate. Normatively, therefore, the Prime Minister drives and “activates” the debate; the Board of Spokespersons and the Presidency frame, schedule, and regulate its internal development.

1. Absence of specific regulation of the “State of the Nation Debate”

In the Regulations of the Congress of Deputies, published by the Resolution of February 24, 1982, there is no nominal regulation of the “State of the Nation Debate” nor of the “Debate on the orientation of the Government's general policy.” Therefore, the general regime of:

• Ordinary and extraordinary sessions.
• Agenda of the Plenary.
• Ordering of debates and speaking times.

Some of these general rules have been modified by later reforms of the Regulations, such as that of 1993 (1993 Reform) and the recent reforms of 2023 and 2025 (2023 Reform and others cited in the regulatory text itself).

2. Initiative and convocation of the plenary session

The State of the Nation Debate is structured as a monographic plenary, which can be held within an ordinary session period or as an extraordinary session. The Regulations establish that:

• Extraordinary sessions: outside ordinary periods, “the Chamber may only hold extraordinary sessions at the request of the Government, the Permanent Deputation, or the absolute majority of the members of Congress,” and the request “must include the proposed agenda.” The Presidency “will convene the extraordinary session […] according to the agenda that has been proposed.”
• Formal convocation: corresponds to the Presidency of Congress, which sets the day and time according to the request and the Chamber's calendar.

In practice, this means that the Prime Minister, as head of the Executive, is the one who politically drives the holding of the State of the Nation Debate, normally requesting the inclusion of that debate in the plenary calendar. Legally, this initiative is channeled through the Government's faculty to request sessions (ordinary/priority or extraordinary), but it is the Presidency of Congress that makes the formal convocation and frames the debate within the Chamber's programming.

3. Agenda and role of the Board of Spokespersons

The Regulations provide that “the agenda of the Plenary will be set by the Presidency of the Chamber, in agreement with the Board of Spokespersons.” Additionally:

• The Government can request that “a specific session include a matter with priority character,” once the regulatory procedures have been fulfilled.
• At the initiative of a parliamentary group or the Government, the Board of Spokespersons can agree, “for reasons of urgency and unanimity,” to include a matter in the agenda even if it has not completed all procedures.

Thus:

• The Prime Minister acts through the Government proposing that the State of the Nation Debate be included as a priority matter of a specific plenary.
• The Board of Spokespersons, as the body where the spokespeople of all groups sit, agrees with the Presidency that this debate be the central point of the agenda and its fit with the rest of the matters.

Moreover, according to the regulatory practice described in the available information, the Board of Spokespersons has powers to:

• Organize parliamentary work and decide which topics are debated and when.
• Distribute the speaking times of the groups according to their representation.

These faculties directly affect the structure of the State of the Nation Debate (initial time of the Prime Minister, turns of the groups, replies, etc.), always within the framework set by the Regulations and the Presidency.

4. Development of the debate: Prime Minister vs. Chamber bodies

Regarding the development of the debate, the Regulations include some relevant general rules:

• “The members of the Government may speak whenever they request, without prejudice to the faculties” of the Presidency to order the debates.
• The Presidency can “extend or reduce the number and time of the interventions of parliamentary groups […] as well as accumulate […] those that in a certain matter may correspond to a parliamentary group,” after hearing the Board of Spokespersons.

Applied to the State of the Nation Debate:

• The Prime Minister has a central role in presenting the orientation of the general policy and can request the floor at different moments of the debate.
• The Presidency of Congress, supported by the agreements of the Board of Spokespersons, sets the concrete structure of the debate (order of interventions, possible replies, duration of turns) and guarantees respect for times and order.

In short, parliamentary regulations place the Prime Minister as the political driver and main speaker of the State of the Nation Debate, while reserving to the Board of Spokespersons and the Presidency of Congress the core formal powers over convocation, agenda, and ordering of the debate, applying the general rules of the Congress Regulations.

In the current XV Legislature, Congress has registered nine proposals to reform its Regulations. Of these, six have been admitted for processing by the Board of Congress and, within that group, four have culminated with Plenary approval. The other two admitted remain unapproved or have not had significant progress to date. The rest of the registered initiatives have not yet even reached the formal admission phase.

Numerical data of the legislature

Considering exclusively the proposals to reform the Regulations of the Congress of Deputies (code 410/…):

• Total registered: 9 proposals.
• Admitted for processing by the Board: 6 proposals.
• Approved by the Plenary: 4 proposals.

That is, approximately two-thirds of the proposals to reform the Regulations that have been admitted for processing have reached final approval in this legislature, reflecting an unusually intense activity on the operational framework of the Chamber itself.

Reforms of the Regulations admitted and approved

1) Proposal 410/000001

• Type: Bill to reform the Regulations of the Congress of Deputies.
• Presentation and admission: 09/14/2023.
• Proposing groups: Socialist, Plurinational SUMAR, Republican, Euskal Herria Bildu, Mixed, and Basque (EAJ‑PNV).
• Status: Approved; processing concluded and approved text published.

This is the first major reform of the XV Legislature, aimed at adapting the Regulations to the new configuration of Congress and the agreements at the start of the legislature. It affects organizational aspects and internal functioning of the Plenary and the Chamber's bodies. The initial text can be consulted in the BOCG, Series D, no. 9, available in this official bulletin.

2) Proposal 410/000004 (article 46.1)

• Type: Bill for a specific reform of the Regulations.
• Presentation and admission: 11/27/2023.
• Proposing group: Popular Parliamentary Group in Congress.
• Status: Approved; processing concluded.

Specific reform of article 46.1 of the Regulations, focused on the regulation of sessions and the agenda, especially in the parliamentary control regime and the setting of debates in Plenary. The initiative and its explanatory statement appear in the BOCG, Series B, no. 33‑1, accessible in this official bulletin.

3) Proposal 410/000005

• Type: Bill to reform the Regulations.
• Presentation and admission: 03/08/2024.
• Proposing groups: Socialist and Plurinational SUMAR.
• Status: Approved, after complete processing (consideration, amendments, subcommittee, committee, and Plenary).

This is a broader reform, aimed at updating several parliamentary procedures, internal organization, and certain rights of groups and deputies, to adapt the Regulations to recent parliamentary practice. All initial documentation of the initiative is collected in the BOCG, Series B, no. 73‑1, consultable in this official bulletin.

4) Proposal 410/000007

• Type: Bill to reform the Regulations.
• Presentation: 04/01/2025.
• Admission for processing: 05/26/2025.
• Main proposing group: Socialist Parliamentary Group, with participation from other groups.
• Status: Approved; processing concluded and text published.

Structural reform on the internal functioning of Congress, especially regarding the amendment regime, parliamentary processing, and other internal regime aspects. After opening and extending the amendment period, it was processed urgently, debated in subcommittee and committee, and approved in Plenary. The approved text is published in the BOCG, Series B, no. 200‑1, available in this official bulletin.

Other proposals admitted but not approved

Besides these four approved reforms, there are at least two proposals from VOX (410/000002 and 410/000003) on the reform of the February 10, 1982 Regulations that were admitted for processing by the Board (09/29/2023 and 11/10/2023, respectively), but have not been finally approved by the Plenary. Their processing, according to available data, is limited to qualification and admission, with no definitive approval recorded.

Other initiatives registered with codes 410/000009, 410/000010, and 410/000011 are not yet recorded as admitted for processing, so they are not included in the count of six admitted proposals nor, of course, in the four approved.