Processing report

Article 50 of the General Telecommunications Law states that: “The bodies responsible for the procedures for approving, modifying or reviewing the instruments of territorial or urban planning that affect the deployment of public electronic communications networks must obtain the appropriate report from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. This report will deal with the adequacy of these planning instruments with this Law and with the sectoral regulations on telecommunications and the needs of public electronic communications networks in the territorial area to which they refer.”

This report of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation should be considered as an instrument of inter-administrative coordination, which aims to align the determinations affecting the environment, public health, historical-artistic heritage and territorial and urban planning that affect the deployment of electronic communications networks developed by public administrations, with the sectoral legislation of telecommunications, thus providing a guarantee for compliance with both legislations.

The request for a report, or if applicable, the response to a letter of amendment, can be made through the official channels enabled for this and which are the ones indicated below:

• Through the telematic form at the headquarters of the Secretary of State: Link to Electronic Form
• Through “Electronic Communication” to the office of the General Subdirectorate of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure Operators, SIR office with code EA0042733

To attach the documentation, in case it cannot be attached directly to the application due to size or other issues, you can include in the application a link to a storage system such as the "Warehouse for Public Administrations" (https://ssweb.seap.minhap.es/almacen/), or a direct and unique link to download it on its municipal website, of the Provincial Council or of the Autonomous Community.

In accordance with the provisions of the General Telecommunications Law, they can only request the report from the bodies responsible for the procedures for approving, modifying or reviewing the instruments of territorial or urban planning that affect the deployment of public electronic communications networks.

Consequently, when an instrument of territorial or urban planning is elaborated by private initiative, it must be the public administration competent for its approval (city council, county council or autonomous community) who requests the report.

The request for the report must be addressed to the address specified in the previous section, attaching all the documentation related to the planning instrument on which the report is requested.

The documentation must be delivered with the following characteristics:

• In electronic format: CD, DVD, USB Pen, web link, etc.
• The format of the files will be such that their content can be accessed: .pdf, .doc, or similar.
• The archive must not be protected, since for the preparation of the report we must work with the document underlining, copying texts and extracting pages.
• The file must be of text (whether or not it has images), with standardized fonts and fonts. A directly scanned document practically makes our work impossible.

When the documentation that is attached to the request does not meet any of these characteristics, we send the petitioner of the report a letter requesting the correction of the defects found. This writing paralyzes the computation of the deadlines established for the issuance of the report.

In accordance with the provisions of article 50.2 of the General Telecommunications Law, the report is mandatory, will be prior to the approval of the planning instrument in question and will be binding in terms of its adaptation to the sectoral telecommunications regulations, in particular, the telecommunications legal regime established by the General Telecommunications Law and its development regulations, and the needs of public electronic communications networks, and must expressly point out the points and aspects in respect of which it is issued with that binding character.

Once the Public Administration sends its request for a report, the General Secretariat of Telecommunications and Management of Audiovisual Communication Services must issue it within 3 months of its complete reception. This means that the deadline for the Ministry begins to count when the complete and error-free documentation has been received. Now you have to take into account some elements.

Favourable report

If the report is positive, the Public Administration can continue with the processing in the approval process of the urban planning instrument, without having to carry out more procedures in the field of telecommunications.

Pro-conditioned report

Sometimes minor defects or material errors are detected in the urban planning instrument submitted to the Ministry for consideration. In these cases, the report is of a pro-conditional nature to the correction of the same.

In these cases, the public administration requesting the report must only make the appropriate corrections in the instrument reported and continue with the processing in order to approve it. It is not necessary to request a new report, just communicate the changes made.

In case the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation does not issue the report within 3 months, it will be understood that it is favorable.

Unfavourable report

If the Ministry’s report is unfavorable:

• The Public Administration has one month to correct its urban planning instrument, collecting the observations reflected in the report, or to submit claims to such observations.
• If this is not done, the approval process for the urban planning instrument may not continue on those points that were the subject of an unfavourable report.

When the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation receives the complete documentation with the correction and/or allegations, it will have one month to issue the new report (2nd report).

In case this 2nd report is favorable: you can continue with the approval process of the urban instrument in question.

In the event that this 2nd report is unfavourable: it will not be possible to continue with the approval process of the urban planning instrument in those points that were the subject of an unfavourable report.