Third Deputy Prime Minister of Spain

The third deputy prime minister of Spain, officially the Third Vice President of the Government of Spain, is a senior member of the Government of Spain. The office is not a permanent position, existing only at the discretion of the prime minister (PM). It is a constitutional office because the Constitution provides for the possibility of more than one deputy PM. It has rarely been utilized, being occupied three times in the last years of the Franco dictatorship and three times in the following democratic period (1977–1978; 2009–2011; and since 2020). The office does not possess special constitutional powers beyond its responsibility as a member of the Council of Ministers. The position is regulated by the Government Act of 1997 and only specifies that the office's purpose is to replace the PM when that office is empty due to a vacancy, absence, or illness. The third deputy PM only assumes this responsibility if the first and second deputies cannot. History Like the position of second deputy PM, the office of third deputy PM was created in January 1974, although its legal framework dates back to the 1967 Organic Law of the State. The first person to hold this position was Licinio de la Fuente, who was also Minister of Labour. De la Fuente distanced himself greatly from PM Arias Navarro, strongly criticizing the position of third deputy PM as symbolic and without possession of any extra powers. This distancing increased when the prime minister refused to create a Government Delegated Committee to deal with social issues, a committee that De la Fuente wanted to chair. After many arguments with the government members and the PM, De la Fuente resigned on March 5, 1975.