Empire Rising: Spain

During this Cabinet meeting, the Spanish Government set the development theme for the new year as stable progress, primarily pursuing industrial and economic stability, with secondary efforts towards certain advancements based on the current foundation.

If a second round of economic crisis erupts again, it would already be commendable for Spain to maintain its current scale of industry and economy.

To seek rapid development amid an economic crisis, even if achievable, would easily attract the attention of other major powers.

From this Cabinet meeting, it can be observed that Carlo’s influence in the Spanish Government is gradually deepening. One clear signal is that after the Cabinet meeting, Carlo indicated to the Royal Senate, which is the Upper House, to strengthen oversight of officials, strictly inspect, and eliminate corrupt and incompetent officials.

If Prime Minister Prim’s advancement of the official performance evaluation bill was a relatively gentle means of scrutinizing officials, then Carlo’s push for anti-corruption measures was a more forceful approach.

The Senate has the power to oversee the Cabinet Government and other officials, so advancing anti-corruption efforts is a matter of course.

Starting from December 1875, while Spain was conducting elections for the Lower House, it was also vigorously promoting anti-corruption oversight, verifying the rationality and accuracy of the performance evaluations of regional government officials over the past year.

Although Prime Minister Prim controls the Cabinet Government, this does not mean that the officials below him have no means to respond. Under the nationwide trend of the official performance evaluation bill’s implementation, there still occur instances of altering evaluation results, changing originally poor results to favorable ones.

It should be noted that every year’s official performance evaluation results are reported to the Cabinet Government and regional councils and serve as an important basis for the promotion of officials.

Such alterations in performance evaluation results would lead more corrupt and incompetent officials to enter the upper echelons of regional governments and even the Cabinet Government in Spain.

Regarding corruption, Carlo has a certain level of tolerance. But if they are both corrupt and incompetent, Carlo cannot tolerate that at all.

For this subset of people, Carlo intends to conduct regular inspections and purges each year. Only by ensuring that the Spanish Government is composed entirely of competent or non-corrupt individuals can it be vibrant, rather than lifeless as it was during the reign of Queen Isabella.

To improve the efficiency of auditing regional officials’ performance evaluations and to strengthen the supervision of officials in regional and Cabinet governments, under Carlo’s indication, the Upper House voted to establish the Performance Evaluation Bureau and the Anti-Corruption Bureau to specifically handle these matters.

The Performance Evaluation Bureau and the Anti-Corruption Bureau, as important departments of the Upper House implementing governmental and official oversight, naturally hold significant importance.

The directors of the Performance Evaluation Bureau and the Anti-Corruption Bureau are held by the Speaker of the Upper House, with three deputy directors chosen through elections in the Upper House, who cannot be members of the ruling party or the coalition party.

The Speaker of the Upper House was only recently elected, and this was someone Carlo was quite familiar with—Duke Jacopo.

Actually, with the large influx of aristocrats into the Upper House, it was already destined that the Upper House would be controlled by aristocrats. The Speaker elected by the aristocrats is certainly one of their own; Duke Jacopo is not only from a historically rich Spanish ducal lineage but also holds Carlo’s deep trust, making him the most suitable choice for the Speaker of the Upper House.

From this, it can also be seen that Spain’s bicameral system has begun to model itself after the United Kingdom, rather than being a special existence as before.

Spain’s two chambers are officially named the Royal Senate and the House of Representatives, originally both were beyond the King’s control, with Parliament holding significant power.

But after Carlo dissolved the Parliament and announced its reconstitution, this situation was immediately altered. The Senate, originally composed of regional representatives, was modified to form the Royal Senate, consisting of regional representatives and aristocrats, transitioning from being more like the American Senate system to resembling the British Upper House system.

It is well known that aristocrats’ titles are hereditary. Naturally, their seats as members of the Upper House are also hereditary, similar to the British Upper House system.

Since entering December 1875, Duke Jacopo, who concurrently serves as the director of the Performance Evaluation Bureau and the Anti-Corruption Bureau, has been almost impossible to spot due to his busyness.

Since being elected as the Speaker of the Upper House, Duke Jacopo has gained immense power, which brings him substantial happiness.

But because Carlo demanded a stringent investigation into regional officials’ performance evaluations and a nationwide anti-corruption campaign, naturally, he, as the head of the two major bureaus, would need to travel all over Spain.

Although the official performance evaluation system implemented by Prime Minister Prim effectively alleviated some corruption, it only alleviated part of it.

With the chaotic corruption across Spain, unless extremely strong and strict supervision and inspection are conducted, it is difficult to eradicate it.

In the half-month period that Duke Jacopo traveled throughout Spain, he discovered over a dozen instances of altered performance evaluation scores.

This was just under the investigation of regional governments. If the investigation extended to cities and even towns, the phenomena of altering evaluation scores and corruption would likely be more severe.

When Duke Jacopo reported this data to Carlo, he received a concise order from Carlo, which was to deal with it seriously, serving as a warning to others.