Spokesperson of the Government of Spain

First communication bodies

Over the years, the task of informing the public became institutionalized, an example of which was the creation in 1918 of an Information Office within the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, whose purpose was "to communicate to the Press the information previously authorized by the Minister, Undersecretary and Directors-General".^[2]

Under the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, the Press Information and Censorship Office was created within the Prime Minister's Office, later renamed the Press Information and Censorship Cabinet. Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Rico Parada was appointed to head this body within days and, after two years, Eduardo Hernández Vida (known by his pseudonym Celedonio de la Iglesia) was appointed, a position he held until the end of the dictatorship. Although these two men occasionally spoke to the press, the de facto spokesperson was General Adolfo Vallespinosa, who typically communicated the Council of Ministers' decisions and provided press coverage of the meetings.^[2] Despite this, communication remained highly personal, as before, with the head of the Executive—Primo de Rivera—routinely providing information to the press. After the dictator's fall, the new prime minister, General Berenguer, changed the head of the Press Office several times, but again, the de facto spokesman was someone else, this time Ricardo Ruiz y Benítez de Lugo.^[3]

During the Second Republic, a Press Section attached to the General Secretariat of the President of the Republic was created (1932), headed by prominent figures such as Emilio Herrero Mazorra.^[4] However, the Prime Minister refused to allow journalists to request information at the Presidential Palace and asked them to go to the headquarters of the Prime Minister's Office or the relevant Ministry, although they were eventually provided with a place to work in the palace to avoid miscoordination.^[5] At the end, the main channel of communication with the public was the under-secretary of the presidency, as well as each minister gave their opinion upon entering and leaving the Council of Ministers meetings.^[5] Later, during Largo Caballero's premiership and in the midst of the Civil War, the Ministry of Propaganda was created, which centralized all internal and external information bodies, although it was abolished a few months later.

Minister-Spokesperson

In the early years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, information and press policies fell under the Ministry of the Interior, led by Ramón Serrano Suñer. However, in 1941 these policies were placed under the control of the FET y de las JONS, through the Deputy Secretary for Popular Education,^[6] although, four years later they would return to the State Administration, through the Under-Secretary for Popular Education, integrated into the Ministry of National Education.^[7]

Later, the Ministry of Information and Tourism was created (1951), a government department responsible for controlling information, press and radio, as well as censorship. It was also responsible for tourism, an industry that experienced significant growth during those years. For the first eleven years, this department was headed by Gabriel Arias-Salgado, who had previously served as Deputy Secretary for Popular Education between 1941 and 1945. This ministry centralized and dictated the communication policy, disseminating reports from the Council of Ministers to the media,^[8] and its head acted as the de facto spokesperson of the government, a role that became more pronounced during the premiership of Carlos Arias Navarro.^[9]

The return to democracy required more communication to the public about the government's work, which made it necessary to formally establish the role of spokesperson. After the Ministry of Information and Tourism, the next highest body of the Spanish Communication Administration was the Information Services Office, created in October 1977 within the Prime Minister's Office.^[10] In September 1978, this Office was abolished and all communication bodies were grouped into a new Secretariat of State for Information, whose head, for the first time, was assigned the role of government spokesperson.^[11]

In 1982, with the arrival of the Socialist Party to power, the State Secretariat was transformed into the Office of the Government Spokesperson, headed by Eduardo Sotillos. In 1985, he was replaced by Javier Solana, Minister of Culture, who would alternate between both responsibilities. However, in 1988 the prime minister Felipe González, decided to give ministerial rank to the Spokesperson's Office, creating the Ministry of the Government Spokesperson, whose first head was Rosa Conde.^[12] With her dismissal in 1993, the ministry was unified with the Ministry of the Presidency, then headed by Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba.

Since then, with the exceptions of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Bajón, Secretary of State for Communication, and Pío Cabanillas Alonso, who was a minister without portfolio, the rest of the government spokespersons have been ministers in charge of a ministerial department, assisted at all times by the Secretary of State for Press.