President of the Government of Spain calls 21st Conference of Regional Presidents

2020.7.24

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The offer to hold it in this town came from the Regional President of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, in recognition of the emblematic role this enclave has played in European culture over the last thousand years. In 1997, the monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla, Suso and Yuso were classified by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

The Conference of Regional Presidents, set up on 28 October 2004, is the maximum political authority for multilateral cooperation between the State and the 17 regional governments and autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Its creation was one of the most important political and institutional initiatives for cooperation development and the territorial structure of Spain.

The aim of the work at this conference is to debate and adopt agreements on matters of special interest for the regional system. Since its creation, the Conference of Regional Presidents has held six in situ meetings, the last one on 17 January 2017. As a result of the current health crisis, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has called this conference on 14 occasions, all of them by video-conference.

The first few meetings of the Conference of Regional Presidents were held somewhat irregularly. During the first government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero three meetings were held (28 October 2004, 10 September 2005 and 11 January 2007) and during his second government one was held (14 December 2009). Mariano Rajoy only held one conference in his first term of office (2 October 2012) and another in his second term (17 January 2017).

The aim of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is for this meeting to be held with an annual basis, as established in the regulation approved at the 5th Conference.

San Millán de la Cogolla hosted a first meeting of regional presidents in 1992, at an event that served to pay tribute to all State languages.

Non official translation