Council appoints two Spanish alternate members to Committee of the Regions

The Council of the European Union has appointed two Spanish alternate members of the Committee of the Regions, filling the seats left vacant after the national mandates of their predecessors came to an end. The appointment was adopted on 22 September 2026 and published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 29 September 2026 as Council Decision (EU) 2026/2174. The two new alternates will serve for the remainder of the current term of office, which runs until 25 January 2030.

The decision rests on Article 305 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and on Council Decision (EU) 2019/852 of 21 May 2019, which determines the composition of the Committee of the Regions. The Council acted on a proposal from the Spanish Government. Under Article 300(3) of the Treaty, the Committee is to consist of representatives of regional and local bodies who either hold a regional or local authority electoral mandate or are politically accountable to an elected assembly. Members and alternates are appointed for five-year terms, and the Council adjusts the list as national and regional mandates change.

The two appointees

Article 1 of the decision names the following representatives as alternate members:

• Francisco Javier Ayala Ortega, Mayor of Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain (Alcalde de Fuenlabrada).
• María Cruz Ferreira Costa, Director General for European Union of the Region of Murcia (Directora general de Unión Europea de la Región de Murcia).

Both are proposed as representatives of regional or local bodies who meet the electoral mandate or political accountability requirement set out in the Treaties.

Vacancies and term of office

The two alternate members’ seats became vacant following the end of the national mandate on the basis of which Carlos Martínez Mínguez and Adrián Ariel Zittelli Ferrari had been proposed for appointment. The current five-year term was fixed when the Council adopted Council Decision (EU) 2025/71 on 10 December 2024, appointing the members and alternate members of the Committee for the period from 26 January 2025 to 25 January 2030. The new decision enters into force on the date of its adoption, 22 September 2026, and was signed at Brussels for the Council by its President, T. Byrne.

A wider round of appointments

The Spanish appointments appeared alongside other changes to the Committee’s membership in the same issue of the Official Journal, including a member proposed by Germany and an alternate member proposed by Austria. Together they show how the Council keeps the assembly’s composition up to date between the five-year renewal cycles, replacing representatives whose domestic mandates have ended.

What it means

The Committee of the Regions is the European Union’s advisory assembly for regional and local authorities, and its members help shape opinions on legislation affecting cities and regions. Alternate members step in when full members are unable to attend, so the two appointees will take part in the Committee’s work for the remaining years of the 2025-2030 term, carrying the voices of Fuenlabrada and the Region of Murcia into a body whose opinions feed into EU lawmaking on cohesion, climate and local governance.

Source: Official Journal of the European Union, L series, No 2026/2174, 29 September 2026, p. 1-2 (official reference: 2026/2174).