Conference of Presidents (Spain)

The Conference of Presidents is the highest-level political body for cooperation and the autonomous communities and the Government of Spain. It is at the top of the group of multilateral cooperation bodies. It has no constitutional or statutory basis. It is made up of the Prime Minister of Spain, (known as "president" in Spanish: Presidente), and who presides, the 17 presidents of the autonomous communities and the 2 mayors-president autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. A first meeting under the presidency of Felipe González in 1990 can be considered precedent-setting.

This is a common cooperation body in politically decentralised states. These top-level political meetings, with similar names, are also held in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Canada. At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the XXI, it has assumed great importance as a driving force in the development of the so-called cooperative federalism, fundamentally in Germany and Austria.

In all these countries, the Conference of Presidents is institutionalized, either through agreements that regulate aspects relating to the functioning and contents of meetings (in the case of Switzerland or Italy), or through the recognition of a political practice by habit, which is inherent in the cooperative operation of the state (Germany, Austria or Canada).