The Senate continues to adjust its internal organization in view of the new legislature that will come out of the general elections to be held next November 29, and has specified the grants system for parliamentary groups. Each group will have an annual fixed amount of 188,784 euros, to which is added another variable portion of 23,598 euros per year for each senator who is part of it.
These amounts are detailed in Article 27 of the Senate Rules of Procedure, which regulates the operation of parliamentary groups in the Upper House and determines the financing that political formations receive from the institution’s budget.
The current scheme is based on the agreement adopted in 2018 by the Board of the Senate chaired at the time by the “popular” Pío García Escudero, which decided “the rationalization of the subsidies provided to parliamentary groups,” a model that remains in force.
In practice, all parliamentary groups receive monthly a fixed allocation of 15,732 euros —equivalent to 188,784 euros per year— and a variable portion of 1,966.50 euros per month for each senator —23,598 euros annually—.
The payment of these grants is made on a monthly basis. To receive them, parliamentary groups must provide the Chamber with their NIF and a specific bank account, in which only transactions linked to the group’s own economic and financial activity will be recorded.
TEN SENATORS TO ACHIEVE A PROPER GROUP
To be able to constitute a parliamentary group in the Senate, it is essential to gather a minimum of ten senators. However, the Rules of Procedure allow the temporary transfer of parliamentarians between parties to facilitate the formation of their own groups, as has happened in the current legislature with the PSOE, PNV, Junts, and Izquierda Confederal.
It will remain to be seen whether, after the elections of November 29, this type of transfers is repeated. Although the right-wing forces (PP and Vox) and the left (PSOE and Frente Amplio) have reached agreements to run jointly in the elections, the final configuration of parliamentary groups will be a subsequent and different process from electoral coalitions.
The Rules of Procedure also establish that a parliamentary group cannot fall below six members during the legislature. If that were to happen, the group would be dissolved at the end of the session period and its senators would be integrated into the mixed group.
At present, the PP already has 23 seats by autonomous designation, which do not depend on the result of the general elections. The PSOE has 19 senators by this same route, while Vox totals 5. They also have representatives designated by the autonomous parliaments Junts (3), ERC (1), BNG (1), Geroa Bai (1), PNV (1), EH Bildu (1), Compromís (1), Más Madrid (1), and Coalición Canaria (1).
THEY WILL ALSO HAVE ADVISERS
In addition to funding, parliamentary groups may have temporary staff for their direct support, in the terms that the Bureau of the High Chamber will set once it is constituted, both in the number of advisers and in their pay categories and distribution, "which in all cases must be proportional to the numerical importance" of each group.
The Senate Rules also state that parliamentary groups "will enjoy total autonomy as regards their internal organization" and that they may use for their meetings the rooms in the Palacio del Senado that the Presidency assigns to them specifically for this purpose.