Pedro Sánchez has decided to appoint Carmen Calvo, who was his first vice president and right-hand woman in the Government between 2018 and 2021, as the new president of the Council of State. This is what the Council of Ministers will approve this Tuesday, as confirmed in the Moncloa to La Vanguardia.
The Council of State is the highest advisory body of the Government. And Calvo will thus follow in the footsteps of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who after being first vice president in the socialist Executive of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, between 2004 and 2010, assumed the presidency of the Council of State between 2018 and 2022. Fernández de la Vega was succeeded by Magdalena Valerio, who was Minister of Labor under Pedro Sánchez.
A ruling from the Supreme Court, however, has annulled Valerio’s appointment as president of the Council of State, understanding that she does not meet the requirement of being a jurist of recognized prestige. The Government will proceed tomorrow to dismiss her, and to appoint Calvo to relieve her.
Calvo (Cabra, Córdoba, 1957) has a long political career. She was Minister of Culture in the Andalusian Government between 1996 and 2004, the year in which Zapatero appointed her his first Minister of Culture. In 2007 she was first vice president of Congress. And after joining the team with which Pedro Sánchez recovered the general secretary of the PSOE, in 2018 she became first vice president of the Government, as well as minister of the Presidency and Relations with the Cortes.
Sánchez took over from Calvo in the profound remodeling of the Government that he carried out in July 2021, after losing the Equality portfolio after a tough fight with Podemos, a partner of the coalition Executive, and after this Ministry was assumed by Irene Montero. When he left the Government, various socialist sources pointed out that his final destination would be the Council of State, as it will ultimately be.
Before being appointed to the new position, Calvo has renounced her membership in Congress.
On November 30, the Supreme Court annulled the appointment of Magdalena Valerio as president of the advisory body for not meeting the legal requirement of “jurist of recognized prestige” required by the Organic Law that regulates the institution.
Given this decision, Valerio presented the annulment incident before the Supreme Court ruling, but the judicial body itself rejected the request of the former Minister of Labor, Migration and Social Security.
Subsequently, it was the State Attorney’s Office that presented the annulment incident, which was also rejected by the Supreme Court and, therefore, endorsed the ruling that annulled the appointment of Magdalena Valerio as president of the Council of State. Ten days later, it became known that Carmen Calvo will be her replacement.
Calvo became the president of the Equality Commission of the Congress of Deputies after leaving the Spanish Government. And given her imminent appointment as president of the Council of State, she has renounced her deputy status.