Former presidents Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, Esperanza Aguirre, and Cristina Cifuentes, all from the PP, will be able to earn tens of thousands of euros per year after being appointed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s government as elective members of the Legal Advisory Commission of the Community of Madrid. Thus, each time they attend a meeting of the body, they will receive 750 euros net. In 2025, the full Commission met 45 times, according to its annual report, so they would have earned 33,750 euros net each if they had attended all the meetings, exceeding 100,000 euros in total expenses. The former presidents did not have the option to receive public funds since Cifuentes, precisely, dissolved the regional advisory council in 2015. Until now: Ayuso included this possibility when approving the statute of former presidents in 2025 and appointed these three former presidents at the end of July. Consequently, if they are called to four plenary sessions a month and attend, they will earn 3,000 euros net.
“The fees will be paid based on the activity they have: it will depend on the number of plenary sessions they can attend, and there does not always have to be a plenary session every week,” explains a spokesperson from the Presidency Department, led by Miguel Ángel García Martín. “It is 750 euros net. If they do not attend the plenary sessions, 0 euros… and they may not attend due to incompatibility or personal matters, and obviously, they do not get paid,” adds this interlocutor. “This fee will be incompatible with the compensation after leaving office and with any other public remuneration.”
The government’s original plan was for the elective members to earn less money. This is stated in public documents consulted by EL PAÍS. “It is proposed that, for the Legal Advisory Commission, the maximum amount to be paid for attendance by elective members at the Plenary sessions shall be 459 euros per session,” reads the regulatory impact analysis of the decree that structures the situation of the regional former presidents. It then specifies: “The final amount must be set by order of the Treasury Department.”
Thus, the final decision, according to a spokesperson for the Madrid government, raises the compensation by 291 euros, up to 750 (63% more). Membership in this advisory body (and the payment of fees) will be for a maximum of six years from their appointment, although it can be extended to twelve for former presidents who have been in office for more than four years, a condition met by Leguina, Gallardón, Aguirre, and, in the future, Díaz Ayuso.
“In the Council of State, former presidents are members and absolutely nothing happens. It makes sense that people with that experience can give their opinion from an institutional point of view and also get paid,” argues a source familiar with the internal workings of the administration.
In 2025, 45 plenary sessions were held, compared to 43 in 2024. That is, if they had attended all those meetings, the presidents would have earned more than 33,000 euros each year, exceeding 90,000 in three years.
To access the position, former Madrid presidents must apply for it. They must also meet a double requirement: having held the office for at least two years and having assumed that responsibility at the beginning of the legislature. A provision included by the government that excludes former presidents Ignacio González, surrounded by scandals from the Lezo case; Ángel Garrido, who clashed with Ayuso after switching to Ciudadanos; and Pedro Rollán.
The latter, in any case, could not join the Commission as a member since he is the current president of the Senate. The same applies to former president Joaquín Leguina (PSOE), who currently serves as the head of the Court of Auditors.
8,500 euros per month
In the former advisory council of Madrid, which Cifuentes eliminated in 2015, former presidents earned 8,500 euros gross monthly (5,500 net), and had an official car and an assistant. When Díaz Ayuso opened up to recovering the council of former leaders, Aguirre immediately expressed support for paying them for it.
“I proposed that former presidents have the same as the members of the advisory council,” she said at the time in a conversation with this newspaper. “What I would like is for the advisory council to be reinstated and for the experience of people like Leguina, who was in power for 12 years, [Alberto Ruiz] Gallardón, who has had all the experiences, and myself to be utilized,” she continued, without mentioning in her list former presidents Cristina Cifuentes (2015-2018), Ignacio González (2012-2015), and Ángel Garrido (2018-2019). “And if you go to a council and have obligations and papers there, why should some get paid and others not? People are getting paid! The council exists! What they removed were the former presidents,” she argued.
Leguina, president between 1983 and 1995, expressed a similar view. “If they go there every day, yes [they should be paid], it depends on how they want to do it,” he explained, although he noted that he was not particularly interested in it. “If you are working, you should get paid, I think,” he added, assuring that the defunct advisory council worked well. “Things were done properly, with absolute independence.”
In this context, the new regulation establishes that from now on former presidents and former councilors can receive 80% of their salary for two years (more than 82,000 and 88,000 euros, respectively).
Official facilities
Additionally, from the approval of the decree, former presidents of Madrid, if they have been in office for at least two years, will have two support staff for two years to carry out their activities, necessary auxiliary means in the facilities of the Community of Madrid, and a car service with a driver. Representation expenses will also be paid. And when they have been in office for more than four years, they will be entitled to the above for the four years following their departure.
These types of benefits are recognized for their former presidents temporarily by the Basque Country, Galicia, Andalusia, and Aragon, according to the Madrid Government, which adds that Catalonia, Asturias, the Valencian Community, and Castilla-La Mancha do so on a lifelong basis or without setting any time limit.
Finally, all former presidents, regardless of when they held office, will have the right to “use the facilities that the Community of Madrid makes available to them for their institutional activity as former presidents; to have protocol services on the occasion of their participation in events or meetings; and to be reimbursed for expenses arising from their institutional activity or representation services entrusted to them.” They will also be able to “have the means to guarantee their security when necessary.” And, thanks to Ayuso, they will once again be paid from public funds.
