Origin and protectionism The responsibilities over the economy had been integrated in the
Ministry of the Treasury since its creation in the 18th century. However, because of the weakness and the deficiencies of the Spanish industry and trade sectors, during the
dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera was needed an
autarchic policy. In addition, after the
World War I the complexity of international markets had plunged
Spain into a strong industrial crisis. As a result, the sectors affected demanded a
protectionist tariff policy in defense of national production against foreign one and, in turn, make it easy the
exports. Thus began an autarchic policy based on economic nationalism and tariff protectionism whose best example is the Cambó tariff of 1922. This policy was assumed by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Thus a certain economic bonanza was achieved that was truncated by the
Great Depression of 1929. The Cambo tariff was the technical and fiscal response to the critical deficit situation of the Spanish trade balance since 1920. It was a tariff policy that served two competing needs: one was to protect the different sectors of the
Spanish economy against the international, heavily taxing imports of products produced by foreign counterparts; another responded to the need to defend export agriculture, a sector with a large foreign market and which was damaged by the rise in tariffs, victim of the consequent increases in the countries affected by the Spanish measures. This was solved with the signing of international treaties of Commerce and Navigation agreeing a particular and significant reduction of the tariff with each one of the foreign nations with which commercial exchanges took place.
Flores de Lemus defined the situation that was lucidly created: there was a complementarity between export agriculture and agriculture and industry in need of protection, although the instruments used by the Government were opposed and a continuous tension was created between them. In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and throughout the Francoist period, economic policy remained heavily centralized and interventionist, but by 1959 the limitations of strict autarky prompted the government to implement the Stabilization Plan, which opened the economy to foreign investment, reduced tariffs and state controls, and laid the groundwork for industrial modernization. Over the next two decades this “Spanish miracle” fostered rapid growth, particularly in tourism, construction and manufacturing—but also led to regional imbalances and inflationary pressures. With the transition to democracy in the late 1970s, these challenges spurred the creation in 1977 of a standalone Ministry of Economy and Trade, entrusted with coordinating fiscal, monetary and trade policies in line with evolving European Community norms.
Dictatorship, Republic and Civil War Although remote antecedents of the Economy portfolio can be found in the creation of the
Ministry of Supply as an immediate consequence of the
crisis of 1917; The first step towards the creation of a specific department occurred during the
dictatorship of Primo de Rivera when the National Economy Council established by Royal Decree of 8 March 1924. The council was born with the purpose of studying the problems of the national production and consumption, for the purpose of setting the customs tariffs and determining the way to establish international commercial relations adapted to the Spanish economic reality. For this reason, its main functions were to collect statistics on foreign trade and
cabotage; obtain economic and commercial information in Spain and abroad; establish the official valuation of the goods, taking into account the cost of the same; propose new
customs tariffs, as well as the revision of nomenclatures and tariffs. It was also responsible for proposing the conclusion of
Trade Agreements. Finally, this body served to control all
pressure groups in the country and thus channel their antagonistic interests: Boards and chambers of Commerce, Industry and Navigation, associations of producers, employers' organizations and
trade unions of all kinds. The end of the Military Directorate in 1925, the restoration of the ministerial regime and the economic circumstances led to the creation of the
Ministry of National Economy (despite its name, it is today the
Ministry of Industry) by Royal Decree-Law of 3 November 1928, in response to public opinion that this affairs required to be placed under one direction only, both in terms of production, trade and consumption; and that to date they were dispersed among the rest of the government departments. The National Economy Council depended on the new Economy Ministry, although slightly modified, continuing with its work of collecting and contrasting the realities of the country around each and every one of the sectors of his economic life. By Decree of 16 December 1931, the department was renamed as Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade. In the middle of the
Civil War, the government of the
Republic created a Ministry of Finance and Economy, first based in
Barcelona and then in
Valencia. The head of the new institution was
Juan Negrín, who at the same time was
Prime Minister. Its creation was ordered by Decree of 17 May 1937 and its functions and structure were dictated by Decree 27 of that same month.
From the economic autarky to the developmentalism of the 1960s The catastrophic situation in which the country was plunged after the
Civil War and the collapse of international markets caused by the
World War II, led to the creation of a new National Economy Council. The new body monitored that all ministries follow the economic guidelines of the
Government in a harmonious and coordinated manner. His legal regime constituted him as an autonomous body of work, consultant, adviser and technician in all the matters that affected the national economy making it dependent on the
Office of the Prime Minister. The importance of the council will be increased, so much that institutionally its president will be compared to those of the
Cortes, the
Supreme Court, the
Court of Auditors and the
Council of State. Its power and influence in economic matters, always oriented towards
autarky, will be equal to that of the
General Secretariat of the Movement. Finally, the president of the council had the rank of
Minister without portfolio. Its connection to the most immobile sector of the regime in terms of economy will mean the beginning of its decline. Confronted openly with the
Ministries of the Treasury and Commerce for the turn that the
Stabilization Plan had made towards a
capitalist economy, the National Economy Council gradually began to lose importance in the 1960s. It disappeared in 1977, absorbed by the Ministry of Economy. During the premiership of
Arias Navarro, a specific
Deputy Prime Minister was created for economic affairs, a position that was assumed by the head of the Treasury portfolio. The new position implied the disappearance of the Ministry of Development Planning, leaving its Undersecretariat ascribed to the Delegate Commission of the Government for Economic Affairs.
Democracy: the Ministry Despite all that, the department that we know today was created in 1977, named Ministry of Economy. Its creation took place in conjunctural circumstances and of great importance for the economic history of
Spain. Once the
political transition to democracy began, the second government presided over by
Suarez was aware that the constitutional process would be seriously hampered if there was no economic growth. The circumstances were totally contrary due to the serious situation that the country was going through due to the
oil crisis of 1973, the ineffectiveness of the measures adopted by the last governments of the dictatorship; as well as the accentuation of the latent problems:
inflation,
unemployment, external deficit, deficit of the
public sector and the low level of investments. The institutional solutions involved remodeling the
General State Administration, creating a
Second Deputy Prime Minister for economic affairs and the position of Minister of Economy through several royal decrees signed on 4 July 1977, appointments that fall in
Fuentes Quintana. The Ministry, created to group in a single department the different competences in the matter of organization and economic planning and to be able to single out the decisions on economic policy extracting them in part from the
Ministry of the Treasury. Its main task was to establish the guidelines of the general economic policy, the short and medium term programming and the study of the proposal of advisable measures to ensure the smooth running of the economy of the country. To carry out is new duties, the department was structured through a Secretariat of State, an Undersecretariat, a Technical General Secretariat and four directorates-general, one for design the economic policy of the government, other to study and analyse the economic policy and its effects, other one to study the economiy and forecast and a fourth one for finance policy and supervision of banking entities. Most of those bodies were newly created and others were transferred from the
Ministry of Finance and the
Ministry of the Presidency. The new ministry also assumed the statistical powers of the government through the
National Statistics Institute. giving birth to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. This body has continued to operate continuously with the exception of the 7th Cortes Generales (2000–2004), under the premiership of
José María Aznar, in which the Treasury and Economy portfolios were split in two. The same happens since the 10th Cortes Generales (2011–present). Between 2016 and 2018, the Ministry of Economy merged with the
Ministry of Industry. Since 2018 the Ministry's remit has expanded and contracted in response to shifting policy priorities and external shocks. In October 2018 it merged briefly with Industry, only to revert in 2020 to a stand-alone Economy portfolio as Spain confronted the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tasked with designing and implementing measures such as furlough schemes (ERTEs), liquidity guarantees for businesses and direct support to strategic sectors, the Ministry also became Spain's lead coordinator for the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility, channeling over €69 billion into national programmes for green transition, digitalisation and social cohesion. == Organization==