National Intelligence Centre


The National Intelligence Centre is the Spanish official intelligence agency, acting as both its foreign and domestic intelligence agency. Its headquarters are located next to the A-6 motorway near Madrid. The CNI is the successor of the Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa, the Higher Centre for Defence Intelligence. Its main target areas are North Africa and South America and it operates in more than 80 countries. CNI's official budget for 2018 is approximately 282 million euros.
The Secretary of State-Director of the CNI is currently Paz Esteban López.

Goals and operation

The centre's essential goal is to provide the Spanish Government all the necessary information to prevent and avoid any risk or menace that affects the independence or integrity of Spain, its national interests, institutions and rule of law. In the same way, the law states that the specific goals of the CNI will be determined and approved yearly by the Council of Ministers. These goals will be included in a secret document, the Intelligence Guidelines.
Besides this organic control of the centre by the Ministers Council, there is also a judiciary control, given the fact certain activities require such intervention. This control is carried out by a judge of the Spanish Supreme Court, chosen by a qualified majority. In this sense, those actions requiring previous authorization by the court are those regarding communications interdiction, entry and registration at home or enterprise addresses, or any other would-be violations of the fundamental rights granted by the Spanish Constitution of 1978.

Precedents and history

The first Spanish intelligence service was created in 1935, in a short-lived experience with an almost null activity, due to the Spanish Civil War paralysing its development. Student revolts by the end of the 1960s motivated the creation of a National Countersubversive Organization, which was the seed for the Servicio Central de Documentación, founded in 1972. The Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa was formed between 1976 and 1977, from the fusion of the SECED and the High Staff of the Army Information Service.

Directors of the CESID / CNI