Following legislative elections, the monarch selects a candidate for prime minister, generally the leader of the party or coalition with a majority in the lower house. The parliament then votes on the selected candidate.

Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) formed a new government in early 2020. Although his party fell short of a majority in the 2019 elections, Sánchez reached a coalition deal with the left-wing party Unidas Podemos and secured the abstentions of Basque and Catalan nationalist lawmakers.

The lower house of Spain’s bicameral parliament, the Congress of Deputies, is composed of 350 members elected in multimember constituencies for each of Spain’s provinces, with the exception of the North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, each of which has one single-member constituency. The Senate has 266 members, 208 of whom are elected directly, and 58 of whom are chosen by regional legislatures. Members of both chambers serve four-year terms.

Spain’s legislative elections are generally considered free and fair. In the November 2019 balloting, the PSOE secured 120 seats, followed by the PP with 88, Vox with 52, Unidas Podemos with 35, and the center-right Ciudadanos with 10. Among several other parties, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the Republican Left of Catalonia–Sovereigntists (ERC-Sobiranistes) won 7 and 13 seats, respectively. In the Senate, the PSOE took 92 seats and the PP won 84.

In 2022, the regions of Castilla y León and Andalucía held elections for their autonomous legislatures in February and June, respectively. The PP secured a governing majority in Castilla y León with the support of Vox, marking the first time that the far-right nationalist party entered a regional government. In Andalucía, traditionally a left-wing stronghold, the PP won an absolute majority for the first time since Spain’s transition to democracy.

Spain’s constitution and electoral laws provide the legal framework for democratic elections, and they are generally implemented fairly.

The initiation and conduct of a 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia featured a number of fundamental flaws. The exercise was prohibited by the courts on constitutional grounds, and the actions of both regional authorities and the PP-led central government at the time contributed to a chaotic environment that did not allow for fair and transparent balloting. Regional elections held later that year largely restored normal electoral and constitutional conditions in Catalonia, even if the underlying dispute remained unresolved.

Citizens are free to organize political parties, which are able to function without interference in practice. While the PP and the PSOE once dominated the political system, corruption scandals, persistent economic woes, and the dispute over Catalonia have aided the rise of new alternatives in recent years, including Unidas Podemos on the left and Ciudadanos and Vox on the right.

There have been multiple democratic transfers of power between rival parties since Spain returned to democracy in the late 1970s. By forming a ruling coalition with the PSOE in 2020, Unidas Podemos became the first party other than the PSOE and the PP to enter national government during the democratic era.

Voting and political affairs in general are largely free from undue interference by unelected or external forces. However, disinformation and other such manipulation in elections is a growing concern. In 2021, the social media platform Twitter temporarily suspended Vox’s account for inciting hatred against immigrants, and the Supreme Court upheld the move in a March 2022 ruling. Separately during the year, law enforcement authorities continued to investigate an alleged campaign by the former PP government to obtain and disseminate compromising information about Catalan separatist leaders and other political opponents. At the same time, officials were investigating possible ties between the Catalan independence movement and the Russian government.

It was reported in April that Spain’s intelligence services had used the commercial spyware system Pegasus to surveil Catalan politicians and other targets between 2015 and 2020. Although the spyware was apparently used in accordance with the law, a European Parliament committee found that the monitoring affected people who were not part of an official investigation or criminal proceeding, and that a lack of information from the Spanish authorities left it unclear whether the targets posed a genuine threat to national security. The director of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) was dismissed in May as a result of the scandal.

Women and minority groups enjoy full political rights. Women are free to advocate for their political interests, and they are relatively well represented in practice, holding 43 and 38 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, respectively.

Spain’s system of regional autonomy grants significant powers of self-governance to the country’s traditional national minorities, including Catalans and Basques.

Nine Catalan officials were sentenced to prison on sedition charges in 2019 for their roles in the illegal 2017 independence referendum. They were released in 2021 under a conditional pardon, which can be revoked if they commit any other crime within a certain period of time, and they remain banned from holding public office. In August 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee found that Spain had violated several Catalan leaders’ political rights in the wake of the referendum by suspending them from public duties prior to conviction. The offense of sedition was eliminated from the penal code as part of a revision adopted by the parliament in December.

Elected officials are generally free to make and implement laws and policies without undue interference. However, the political system has failed to produce a stable governing majority in the parliament since 2015, resulting in frequent and inconclusive elections, a sharp decline in the passage of legislation, and an increased use of mechanisms like executive decrees to advance the government’s agenda without the approval of lawmakers.

Concerns about official corruption often center on party financing. Most party expenses are funded by the state, but political parties can access commercial bank loans. Over the past decade, lawmakers have imposed some restrictions on such private sources of funding, prohibited banks from forgiving party debt, strengthened rules on asset disclosure and conflicts of interest for high-ranking officials, and enacted more severe penalties for corruption-related crimes. Nevertheless, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has called for additional efforts. The penal code revisions that were adopted in December 2022 included reduced sentences for misuse of public funds, raising concerns that it could harm anticorruption efforts.

Although the courts have a solid record of investigating and prosecuting corruption cases, the system is often overburdened, and cases move slowly. Among other high-profile proceedings during 2022, the Supreme Court in July ratified the sentences of several former PSOE officials from Andalucía’s regional government who had overseen a fraudulent system for distributing social and labor benefits, with one defendant, a former regional president, receiving six years in prison.

In March, prosecutors dropped a series of investigations into possible tax evasion and money laundering by former king Juan Carlos I, citing a lack of evidence as well as legal obstacles including the statute of limitations.

Legal safeguards to ensure government transparency include asset-disclosure rules for public officials and laws governing conflicts of interest. The Transparency Act, which took effect in 2014, is meant to facilitate public access to government records, though freedom of information activists have reported onerous procedures and called for improvements to the law, as well as mechanisms to access more judicial and parliamentary documents.

GRECO has noted that the Council of Transparency and Good Governance (CTBG), the body tasked with monitoring compliance with transparency obligations, lacks adequate training and financial and human resources. Moreover, civil society organizations continue to report that the Sánchez government frequently resists complying with requests or orders to disclose information in practice.

In March 2022, the Supreme Court suspended the appointment of new leaders for the Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD), which had been led by an interim director since the incumbent’s mandate expired in 2019. The court found that a political agreement on the appointments between the PSOE and PP had violated legal requirements for an open selection process, and that the effort would have to start again from the beginning.

Spain has a free press that covers a wide range of perspectives and actively investigates high-level corruption. However, consolidation of private ownership poses a threat to media independence, and ownership in the print and online media sectors is less transparent than in broadcast media. In recent years, the media have become more polarized and increasingly replace factual reporting with opinion and commentary, a trend that fuels public mistrust of journalists.

In 2021, after a years-long process, a new board of directors was elected to govern the public broadcaster, the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation (RTVE). The changes were intended to strengthen RTVE’s independence, but several information rights organizations argued that most of the board members were chosen based on political agreements between the government and opposition rather than on merit. In September 2022, the president of RTVE resigned after his performance faced criticism from both staff and the board.

Media outlets have encountered a proliferation of lawsuits intended to obstruct their coverage of private-sector wrongdoing, and journalists are sometimes subject to harassment and physical assaults in the course of their work, especially during protests. The level of violence against journalists has fallen considerably in comparison with previous years, but continued harassment of journalists by far-right elements on social media has been widely reported.

A controversial public safety law that took effect in 2015, nicknamed the “gag law” by its critics, established large fines for offenses including spreading images that could endanger police officers or protected facilities. Journalists have faced penalties for alleged violations of the law while reporting on police actions.

Religious freedom is guaranteed in the constitution and respected in practice. As the country’s dominant religion, Roman Catholicism enjoys benefits not afforded to others, such as financing through the tax system. However, the religious organizations of Jews, Muslims, and Protestants also have certain privileges through agreements with the state, including tax exemptions and permission to station chaplains in hospitals and other institutions. Other groups that choose to register can obtain a legal identity and the right to own or rent property. The penal code contains a provision to punish blasphemy, but prosecutions are rare in practice.

The government does not restrict academic freedom in law or in practice.

Private discussion remains open and vibrant, but more aggressive enforcement of laws banning the glorification of terrorism has begun to threaten free speech, with dozens of people—including social media users and several performers—found guilty in recent years for what often amounts to satire, artistic expression, or political commentary. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that a person could violate the law even if there was no intention to “glorify” a terrorist group or “humiliate” its victims. Individuals have also been prosecuted for insulting the monarchy, the flag, and other state institutions.

The constitution provides for freedom of assembly, and the authorities typically respect this right. However, the public safety act that took effect in 2015 imposed a number of restrictions, including fines of up to €600,000 ($630,000) for participating in unauthorized protests near key buildings or infrastructure. Participants in protests on a variety of local concerns have been ordered to pay smaller but still substantial fines under the law in practice.

In recent years, several protesters have been prosecuted for participating in demonstrations that resulted in clashes with police, facing up to seven years in prison for allegedly attacking the authorities or causing public disturbances. At the same time, human rights organizations have reported an escalation in police violence during demonstrations.

Despite these concerns, a number of protests took place across Spain in 2022, including demonstrations by human rights activists, Catalan separatist groups, workers’ rights organizations, and advocates for social benefits and the public health system.

Domestic and international nongovernmental organizations operate without significant government restrictions.

With the exception of members of the military and national police, workers are free to organize in unions of their choice, engage in collective bargaining, and mount legal strikes.

The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the courts operate autonomously in practice. However, the Council of Europe has criticized the fact that under current law, the 12 judges who sit on the 20-member General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ)—which oversees the courts and is responsible for appointing, transferring, and promoting judges—are not directly elected by their peers, but appointed through a three-fifths vote in the parliament, as with the other eight members who are not judges. This arrangement has exposed the body to political disruptions.

The CGPJ’s membership was due to be renewed in late 2018, but the opposition PP denied the governing parties the necessary supermajority; the incumbent council has continued to operate on an interim basis, raising concerns about the legitimacy of its judicial appointments and other decisions. In 2022, the conservative wing of the council blocked the appointment of four new judges to replace members of the 12-seat Constitutional Court whose terms expired in June; the appointments would give the court a progressive majority. In December, when the government attempted to break the deadlock with legislation that reduced the majorities and approvals needed for judicial appointments, the Constitutional Court itself—including its outgoing members—ordered a halt to the legislative process. The unprecedented constitutional crisis ended days later, when the Constitutional Court and CGPJ agreed to move forward with the four pending appointments. However, the older impasse over renewal of the CGPJ remained unresolved.

The ECHR, ruling in June 2022 on a case that dated to 2014, found that Spain had violated the privacy rights of several Catalan judges after it was proven that the police had kept files on them based on their expressed views about the legality of a possible independence referendum. The materials included photographs and personal details, and some of the information had been leaked to the press.

The authorities generally observe legal safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention, though judges can authorize special restrictions on communication and delayed arraignment for detainees held in connection with acts of terrorism. Defendants typically enjoy full due process rights during trial. However, high-profile cases related to Basque and Catalan nationalism in recent years have featured flaws—including disproportionate charges and penalties as well as unjustified pretrial detention—that drew criticism from international organizations.

The population faces no major threats to physical security. The potential for terrorist attacks by radical Islamist groups remains a concern, though Basque Fatherland and Freedom (ETA), a separatist group that carried out terrorist attacks for decades, formally dissolved in 2018.

Prison conditions generally meet international standards, but reception centers for irregular migrants suffer from overcrowding and other problems.

Women, members of racial minority groups, and LGBT+ people enjoy legal protections against discrimination and other mistreatment, though a degree of societal bias persists. A year after the July 2021 murder of a young man by a group of people who were allegedly shouting homophobic slurs, two suspects had pleaded guilty and five others were awaiting trial. Members of some minority populations—including Roma—remain economically marginalized and are allegedly subject to police profiling.

Spain is a major point of entry to Europe for irregular migrants and refugees, with most making the crossing by sea; in 2022, nearly 30,000 people arrived in the country in this way. International human rights groups have criticized the response by Spanish authorities, stating that migrants and asylum seekers are often housed in poor conditions, including improvised camps that allegedly violate human rights standards.

Separately, thousands of migrants and refugees regularly congregate at the land border between Morocco and the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. In 2020, the grand chamber of the ECHR upheld the legality of a controversial practice in which Spanish authorities summarily return people who cross the exclaves’ borders unlawfully, for example by scaling high fences. On June 24, 2022, nearly 2,000 people tried to cross irregularly into Spanish territory through Melilla. At least 23 migrants died and dozens more were injured in the attempt. Spanish authorities denied that any deaths—which were largely attributed to falls or the press of the crowd—occurred on Spanish soil, but investigations by media and human rights organizations detailed beatings by Moroccan police and pushbacks by security forces on the Spanish side.

There are few significant restrictions on individuals’ freedom to travel within the country or abroad, or to change their place of residence, employment, or education. However, the authorities have been criticized for failing to grant documented asylum seekers free movement within Spanish territory, despite multiple court rulings on the matter.

The legal framework supports property rights, and there are no major restrictions on private business activity.

Personal social freedoms are generally respected. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Spain since 2005, and same-sex couples may adopt children. In December 2022, the Congress of Deputies passed a bill allowing people aged 16 or older to change the gender on their official documents without a medical diagnosis or proof of hormone treatment. The bill, which had yet to win Senate approval at year’s end, would also ban so-called conversion therapies.

There are legal protections against domestic abuse and rape, including spousal rape; while both remain problems in practice, the government and civil society groups work actively to combat them. A law that took effect in October 2022 defined rape as nonconsensual sex, eliminating the need to show that the crime featured physical violence or intimidation, but critics denounced an unintentional loophole that allowed people convicted under the old law to apply for reduced sentences. Abortion is legal but can be difficult to access in practice: in five of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions, no public hospital offers the procedure.

Residents generally have access to economic opportunity and protection from exploitative working conditions. Despite strong antitrafficking efforts by law enforcement agencies, however, migrant workers remain vulnerable to debt bondage, forced labor, and sexual exploitation.

The government continued to increase the country’s minimum wage in 2022, aiming to raise the figure to 60 percent of the average salary in Spain by the end of 2023 as part of an effort to reduce the level of income inequality in the country, which is among the worst in the European Union.