ABSTRACT
As with most national intelligence systems in Western democracies, the past decade has seen substantial changes in the structure of the Spanish system of intelligence. These reforms have resulted in a system formed by an array of national and departmental bodies and structures of intelligence, operating at the various different levels of the system, in order to ensure coordination between organisations. Since the attacks of 11 March 2004 (henceforth referred to as 11-M), the creation of intelligence coordination centres has become the general focus of many governments, and is largely a response to the flaws and deficiencies that have become apparent within their intelligence systems. However, in Spain this institutional development is not accompanied by a complementary system of directives and standards for the intelligence community. The construction of the Spanish intelligence community still seems to be a work in progress, if community is to be understood as a coordinated set of national intelligence and departmental services sharing information and working as a unit to achieve common planned objectives according to a security strategy.1 In fact, such a strategy did not exist until June 2011, when the government published the Spanish Security Strategy: Everyone’s Responsibility (Gobierno de España 2011).2
