Nationalities
and regions in
Juan Romero González (*)
Professor in Human Geography. Department
of Geography,
Corresponding author. Tel. 00-34-96-386-42-37; fax: 00-34-96-386-42-34
E-mail address: Juan.Romero@uv.es
______________________________________________________________________
Abstract
The main keys of the debate about the state
model in
______________________________________________________________________
Introduction.
Any impartial observer of Spanish political
development can verify the formidable changes which have taken place over the
last twenty years. Few would question the importance of the advances made since
the signing of the Constitution in 1978 and its posterior development. Without
considering its content untouchable, nor denying the possibility of a rereading
or, were it the case, modification by consensus, it is essential that the transcendency of what has been achieved over the last two
decades is valued most positively. The transformation from the uniformising and excluding authoritarian model of the dictatorship
to the present
These achievements acquire their full historical
transcendence and political significance by contrasting them with the absence
of an idyllic past in the creation of
This clash, so characteristic of the Spanish
past, is the undeniable product of a very concrete cause: the outstanding
pre-eminence of coercion with regard integration, used by the right during the
last two centuries either as the legitimate representative of political power
in some cases, or as deforciant in others. From Cánovas to Maura, from Primo de Rivera to Franco, not only
have Spanish conservatives had a patrimonial idea the State, but also the very
idea of what Spain was and what it should and should not be, rejecting, when
not repressing, any dissident revelation of diversity that went one step
further than mere folklore.
Not bearing this past in mind, it would be impossible to
comprehend the existence of a feeling of relative injustice among many citizens
or the political manifestation of this in peripheral democratic nationalisms.
At the same time, but in the opposite sense, bearing this past in mind, however
irreconcilable certain positions among the democratic parties may seem in
today’s political arena, the present state of affairs is certainly an
improvement on any of the past states. And it is precisely this which
necessitates moving further forward in the building of the concept of Spain
which, taking its starting point in the Constitution of 1978, must delve more
deeply into developing a framework for the acknowledgement and coexistence of
its different identities, these having the need to construct together an
affective notion of Spain on the basis of how they see themselves today and
want to be in the future. An attainable concept of
The situation at present is testimony to the fact that the
debate surrounding the form the State ought to take occupies a substantial part
of the very broad political agenda in
There is no shortage of
examples of the growing divergence of opinions and staging of political clashes
surrounding the form of the State, and all of them eloquently reflect the very
different conceptions and strategies at the heart of political autonomy as well
as peripheral democratic nationalisms. However, various political resolutions,
the use of parliamentary majorities to either block agreements between
Autonomous Communities or avoid the debate on Senate reform, the binding of
bilateral agreements – disguised as State agreements – between the two majority
parties in the Spanish parliament, or the announcement by central government of
a future Autonomous Cooperation Law to “close” the model, do little to help
build a favourable climate to obtain a basic consensus among all the political
voices with democratic representation in the different parliaments. The
reinforcement of political strategies designed to give a biased, incomplete,
inflexible or sole, true reading of the Constitution of 1978, or the concretion
of certain political debates emanating from Spanish nationalism, as in the
recent elections in the Basque Country, are worrying symptoms of a mood which
shows a notable political incapacity to take on board, accept or even
understand that Spain is a plurinacional reality
containing peoples who demand greater political powers within their respective relevant
spheres of democratic decision making. At the other extreme, the strategy
initiated by the political voice of Basque democratic nationalism does not
guarantee many potential points of agreement by going down a road which allows
us to continue moving forward together without recognising any of the
differences which go beyond the purely cultural or linguistic.
The fundamental question proposed here to reflect and
debate upon is whether we are facing a consolidated State, the form of which
has yet to be “closed”, “stabilized”, “completed” or “culminated” by the
introduction of a number of modifications and/or innovations which will lay the
foundations for an improved functioning of the Autonomic State, or whether we
are at the end of the first and important positive stage of political
decentralisation which, once consolidated, will allow us to take on the
constitutional challenge, or better still the historical challenge, of
accommodating each and every one of the different nations which make up the Spanish
State.
In the first part of the pages to come, the idea developed
is that Spain is at the close of an important stage of development as an
autonomous model based on political decentralisation which from the very
beginning involved the constitutional recognition of existing asymmetries but
today corresponds to a uniformising model given that
the two majority parties followed only one of the various lines drawn up by
Constitution. A brief summary of the most important realizations and
insufficiencies of the
The second part reflects
upon the limits of the
1. The process of
political decentralisation. Realisations and insufficiencies.
1.1. Nations and regions. Asymmetry and political
uniformisation. Only one of the
various possible interpretations of the Constitution of 1978 has been made.
Suffice to say that at the time there were other possibilities. The
constitutional text finally approved by consensus, contains deliberate
ambiguities as well as historical progresses, renunciations and grey areas
because the times demanded them. And why in reference to Title VIII, dedicated
to model the future structure of the State, it is said that the Constitution of
1978 prefigures both an open and
indefinite process (Aparicio, 1999, 36-39). It was
the Autonomous Agreements in 1981 and 1992, reached between UCD-PSOE and
PP-PSOE (Aja, 1999), that have progressively
consolidated the distribution of political power that if in its early days was
asymmetrical, today it is, once again, uniformising (Requejo, 1999, 325). And it is precisely this question,
related to the reference in the constitutional text regarding nationalities and regions and the recognition of Historical
Rights, which has once again become of great political importance. Twenty
years on, the historical nationalities, which throughout the entire period have
supported the transfer of more powers to all the regions, until finally
reaching the almost comparable
levels of competence of today, demand with
ever increasing intensity, although in very different ways, the right to be
different.
The extraordinary complexity of the
present political situation lies in that, if at the beginning of the process
recognising plurinationality was plagued with
enormous difficulties, today these are, if such a thing is possible, even
greater. On the one hand, there exists on the part of the Autonomous
Communities who have followed the procedure set out in Article 143 of the
Spanish Constitution, a logical desire to practise the same level of competence as those who followed that of Article 151 and the Second
Transitory Disposition of the Constitutional
text both of which from the outset afforded a greater level of political
autonomy to the so-called historical
nationalities (Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, those which had
obtained a statute of automony during the Second
Republic). On the other hand, there is the
renewed protagonism of the intention of the
historical nationalities to begin a second phase which involves the treatment
of the differential facts regarding the basis of the political recognition of
asymmetries. In this phase, the intention would not be to obtain concessions or
recognition of given generic differential facts, an unnecessary task since
these are already contained in the Constitution, but to face the necessity of
tackling what has been deemed convenient to call "fitting" or "full and stable, that is, recognised as well as
comfortable and articulate accommodation of the minority national identities of
the State" (Requejo, 1999, 330). From the
Spanish left, proposals of a federal nature are being proposed, with and
without recognition of a certain degree of asymmetry, as a means of moving
forward in the construction of an Autonomic State, having understood that the
model to aspire to which the Constitution of 1978 prefigures is a federal one. Finally, from conservative Spanish nationalism, whether
it be right or left, there exists the desire
to "close" or "culminate"
the present model, blocking any possibility of moving forward in the
recognition of plurinationality, making other
interpretations of the constitutional text which go beyond generic recognition
of mere cultural differences impossible. The following are the distinct
political expressions to refer to the same State: the Spanish nation, a plural
or pluricultural nation, a
In
any case, what is to be emphasized here is that in the present debate very
different questions are being mixed together which it would be convenient not
to confuse in the political debate because, as is clearly stated in the second
article of the Spanish Constitution, some are at a region level and others are at a nation level. Some of the more obvious dysfunctions to be
considered, are exclusively related to the coordination and functioning of any
strongly decentralized state; the others, also to be dealt with below, are
connected to specific unresolved questions which prevent the State of
Autonomies from fully
identifying with those basic characteristics
which define the European federal states; finally, the regulation of plurinationality would constitute the third level, which is
not related in any way with the two anterior levels, despite the fact that
there does occasionally prevail mistaken or misleading opinions interested in
identifying federalism with nationalism or in recognising regional but not
national status.
At
the first level, many questions related to the efficient running of the
At
the second level, are those questions which prevent us from identifying ourselves
with a federal state. The mere
consideration here of some of the most important of these (the financing
system, the inexistence of requests for coordination and political decision
making between the different executive levels, the representation of the
Autonomous Communities in the European decision-making organisms, the lack of
mechanisms which would allow autonomous parliaments to decide on the structure,
functions and composition of constitutional bodies such as the Constitutional
Court...), gives an idea, despite the advances of historical proportions
already achieved, of the ground still to be covered in the process of full
articulation of political power of a “composed-state” (as defined by the
Constitutional Court) such as the Spanish one.
1.2. Political autonomy and financing. It has been
said that the system of financing is one of the key issues in the construction
of an
In
the mid nineties, the group of experts given the task of analysing this
question declared that "...the root of the problems suffered by the
present system of autonomous financing lies in the inappropriateness of this
system with regard the structure of the state set out in the Constitution of
1978, an inappropriateness
which has been developing ever since. The
decisions of decentralised spending are out of keeping with a centralised
financing structure and, above all, lead to recurring financial disequilibriums which are ultimately a burden on the budget
of the central administration" (Monasterio et
al., 1994, vol. II, pag.299).
Without having to repeat here the considerations of this group of
experts, which incidentally are shared, it can be confirmed that the financing
model of the Autonomic State has made it evident for over more than twenty
years, with more clarity
than in other areas, the great difficulty present in trying to achieve a better
“fit” which, in accordance with the
Constitution, would give full meaning to the real apportioning of political
power carried out in Spain: political autonomy, financial autonomy and
sufficiency, full
fiscal co-responsibility, solidarity, equity and
coordination.
As is
known, this process of political decentralisation has granted the Autonomous
Communities, at different rates, an important capacity and autonomy in the
development of economic, social and territorial cohesion policies. Above all,
it has awarded them great historical protagonism in
the construction process of the Welfare State. And it is in relation to the
public social policies that some of the most important problems present over
the last twenty years and highlighted in this study can be detected.
The
functions and services transferred to the Autonomous Communities in terms of
welfare are essentially comparable, if we focus on their political capacity,
however, they are not as yet comparable if we refer to the resources that each
regional government is able to set aside to fulfil the statutory and
constitutional obligation to provide the same services and the same quality to
all citizens, irrespective of their place of residence.
The
process of the transfer of political power from the central administration to
the Autonomous Communities implicitly contained from the start an unequal
financing per inhabitant, the consequences of which are still present today.
The procedure initially used to calculate the financing of the services
transferred was based on the principle of the effective cost of the transferred matter. In accordance with this,
each autonomous community would receive from the Ministry of Finance a sum
equivalent to the effective cost that Central
Government said it would apportion to that territory to guarantee the
transferred service. Subsequently, it has been shown that the unitary State did
not set aside exactly the same resources per inhabitant per region and, as a
consequence, when calculating the effective cost of the services to go ahead
with their transfer, some Autonomous Communities received more poorly
financed services than others (Pérez, 1997). As the fundamental nucleus of the transfers
was made up of the transfers in health and education, each Autonomous Community
had to initially confront the situation under unequal conditions. The later
revisions of the financing model, in 1992 and 1996, did not resolve this
important question. Neither has it been dealt with in the recent agreement of
2001, despite its noticeable advances from the equity perspective.
The
clear initial asymmetry in the financing of autonomous social policy peaks
considerably if the statutory communities of Navarre and the Basque Country are
included in the comparison, given that they have at their disposal a financing
per inhabitant very much superior to the rest to guarantee the same public
services. This position of advantage, that none of the different financing agreements of 1992, 1996 or 2001 have
resolved, should not be attributed to the fact that these communities have a
different system of financing recognised in the Spanish Constitution, different
from the common system governing the other regions, but to the fact that the sum bilaterally negotiated between these
communities and central government allows them to have access to more resources
than those communities under the common system for financing identical
matters.
This
is the politically relevant element, which has never been seriously faced up to
until now, and which explains why other autonomous parliaments and governments
denounce situations of comparative
(dis)advantage, even demanding bilateral fiscal pacts or equivalent financing per
inhabitant. It also explains why some Autonomous Communities, as for example,
Catalonia and the Valencian Community, despite their greater relative economic
ability to compensate the inherited structural deficit, are still among the
communities which spend the least amount per inhabitant on basic services such
as education (Romero; Garcés, 2001). Although the
process of transfers agreed between the two majority parties in 1992 has just
been recently completed, the financing per inhabitant in the Autonomous
Communities still remains appreciably different.
Undeniable
advances have indeed come about as well as an acceptable functioning of basic
aspects such as solidarity. Contrary to what is occasionally argued or used as
political argument, the system has not operated in favour of the richest
communities. However, twenty years after the beginning of the first transfers,
the system, applied with a greater or lesser degree of consensus, has shown up
elements which highlight shortcomings and grey areas. Among them, the following
stand out: a) the total dependency which the Autonomous Communities have had on
central government to cover the financing of the transferred functions; b) the
system has not incorporated financing autonomy or fiscal co-responsibility, a
circumstance which distances us from other European experiences of a federal
nature; c) the Autonomous Communities have only enjoyed autonomy in spending
(which has on occasion meant a lack of control of the level of debt), without
being held responsible for the raising of income through taxation or facing up
to the advantages and the costs of their own political decisions before their
respective electorate; d) the different administrations of central government
have shown a notable mistrust and resistance to making the process of fiscal
decentralisation a reality; e) a somewhat restrictive and, on certain
occasions, unclear attitude on the part of the central administration when
calculating the real value of the effective cost of the services transferred to
the Autonomous Communities; f) various legislative or regulation initiatives of
basic legislation, which correspond to central administration, have not always
been accompanied by the finance necessary for the Autonomous Communities to
correctly develop and apply them correctly; g) excessive use of the mechanism of bilateral political agreements
and compromises which, either by means of pacts or by including territorial
investment settlements in the respective annexes of the General Budget Laws,
has meant additional distribution of resources without the necessary transparency, irrespective of the real needs of the territories and almost always
derived from the need to form parliamentary majorities; h) the absence of
coordination mechanisms as well as efficient, reliable and complete information
for the different administrations, capable of facing up to such fundamental
questions as the deficit and falling into debt; finally, local administration,
the third pillar of the State, has until now remained outside the entire
process.
Many of these questions, repeatedly
brought to our attention over recent years, have served to reclaim the need to
establish a system of financing which, based on consensus, will deal with many
of the shortcomings felt but in an atmosphere of greater institutional trust
and loyalty between the different administrations of the State. The recent
agreement on autonomous financing, passed by consensus between central
government and all the Autonomous Communities under the common financing
system, is an attempt to provide greater stability despite having already been relativized by one or other of the historical
nationalities.
This agreement, the result
of the new distribution of recourses between central government and the
Autonomous Communities, incorporates a number of politically important advances
in matters widely protested by the representatives of autonomous governments
and other experts. Two features in particular stand out: on the one hand, the
degree of financial responsibility and autonomy has been increased, and on the
other, general health care has been incorporated into the financing system.
Nevertheless, despite the level of political consensus reached, a circumstance
which must be positively valued as it confers more stability on the
1.3. Territorial
policy and institutional coordination mechanisms. The
This organisational
weakness, a consequence of the extraordinary fragmentation of the institutional
make up, is particularly noticeable in the area of territorial policy, the only
related aspect included in this paper, although it is also evident in many
other areas (agriculture, education, universities, research, social services,
immigration...). Many of the inexplicable duplicities (ministries which have had
all their functions transferred
continue to increase the number of civil servants they employ), the even more
inexplicable shortcomings (such as the question of the protection and promotion
on behalf of central government of all the languages and cultures of Spain) and
the all too frequently regenerated political tensions have for some time now
been demanding an adequate adaptation of the institutional make up, of the
distribution of political power in its totality, based on a new form of pact
and constitutional loyalty as well as on the new reality of the Autonomic State
which has practically finished the process of transfers laid out in the
political agreements reached between the PP and the PSOE in 1992.
At the state level, their
still remains widespread resistance on the part of central government towards
the participation of autonomous and local governments (which are also the
State) in decision-making which affects the whole, as well as a vested interest
in continuing to monopolize relations with the European Union. Concerning the
relationship between regional government and local administration, there is a
worrying lack of coordination in territorial policy at the regional and
metropolitan level, a coordination which would allow us to overcome the present
situation in which there are as many territorial strategies as there are
municipalities, but a lack of which negatively affects the sustainability of
the territories. In particular, there is a significant absence of a culture of
cooperation and a distinct lack of institutional devices fundamental in the
case of
For example, the deficient
application of European agri-environmental measures
in Spain, a deficiency far beyond the social and cultural context which can in
part explain it, has clearly shown that much of the budgetary resources given
to Spain for the development of agri-environmental
programmes contained in Regulation 2078/92 have stopped operating due to a lack
of institutional devices and adequate coordination (European Commission, 1998).
The design of large
infrastructures is too often laid out without the necessary degree of
knowledge, participation and consensus. The development and final approval of
the National Hydraulic Plan is a perfect example of how having parliamentary
majorities may be a necessary but it is certainly not a sufficient condition
for making decisions of a very complex nature and of territorial impact in a
state with such a complex structure. Any initiative of such characteristics
requires and demands the existence of formal political decision-making spheres
the likes of which
Prior to taking political
decisions of such importance, there should exist, as there exists in other
federal countries such as Germany, Austria and Belgium, the formal instance for
reaching political agreements of consensus which involve the joint
responsibility of the relevant administrations of territorial policy. In the
case of
The complete lack of
institutional mechanisms allowing us to form binding political compromises
orientated towards coordinating and rationalising territorial strategies means
that we are witnessing in
There is broad agreement on
emphasising the need for external contributions of water to the southeastern geographical region of
Similar agreement exists on
emphasising that the present situation is the result of allowing the
cooperation or the complicity of the relevant public administrations to
passively develop over decades, a productive model the short-term effectiveness
of which no one questions, but which has completely destabilized the system as
a whole and makes it unsustainable in the medium-run.
Given the objective need for
these outside contributions to resolve this structural problem, to which everyone
has contributed but which no one will take political responsibility for,
guarantees (which the NHP cannot offer) and compromises should be made by the
regional governments who will receive the surpluses from the
At the other extreme, in the
supply basin, the anachronistic forecasts contained in the NHP, which are in
turn due to the acceptance of an agreement approved by the Aragon parliament to
increase the irrigation surface area by almost half a million hectares, bear
little resemblance to the post-productive framework set out in the Agenda 2000
or to what is set down in the Community Water Directives.
These central questions
should not be resolved by means of bilateral negotiations as these are often a
source of political antagonism and tension. In the face of the shortage of institutional
decision-making mechanisms, it is foreseeable that in this case different, or
at best juxtaposed, territorial strategies will develop, ultimately having a
negative effect on the system as a whole.
1.4. The
Given the backlog
accumulated by the Court, the most recent sentences refer to regulations that
came into force in the eighties and early nineties, some of which had already
been appealed against prior to ruling. And although in many cases it has
sanctioned the basic essence of certain regulations and their congruousness
with the constitutional text, it has repeatedly expressed the unconstitutional
nature, either total or partial, of laws, regulations and ministerial orders,
in the belief that central government was clearly incurring on the powers
granted exclusively to the Autonomous Communities in their respective Statues
of Autonomy.
In its role as demarcator of functions, here referring to those matters
related to territorial policy only, the
The persistence of central
government throughout these years has been striking reflected in its
reiteration of the same arguments and its citing the very articles of the
Spanish Constitution to approve regulations which extend its functions and in
serving notices of unconstitutionality against autonomous regulations. And this
despite the abundance of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court and the
fact that central government is fully aware that this organ usually reaffirms
its juridical foundations by referring to the decisions of previous rulings. A
brief reprisal of the themes which have occupied constitutional jurisdiction in
recent years (see Tormos, 2000; Carrillo, 2000;
Carrillo, Mieres, 2000) gives a clearer idea of the
important role played by this constitutional body in the complex process of
function demarcation.
The transition from a
unitary state to a strongly politically decentralized state has been dominated
by a number of characteristics which can be summarized as the excessive
centralising vocation shown by central government in the formation of
regulations, and in its desire to flood the sphere of functions that the
Spanish Constitution grants the State, trying to prevent the Autonomous
Communities from fully exercising their constitutional and statutory functions.
The jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, so fundamental throughout these
years, has mirrored best of all the existing political tensions when having to
provide an interpretation of the Constitution and the Statutes from the
perspective of institutional loyalty, the development of cooperation and
coordination between administrations and giving full meaning to the Autonomic
State which the Constitution prefigures and the respective Statutes of Autonomy
have explicitly stated.
From a study of the sentnces,
it can be deduced that the
1.5. Intergovernmental
relations, public policy and the articulation of the State. There
is wide agreement regarding some of the most important shortcomings related to
this particular group of problems: a) intergovernmental relations are not
institutionalised; b) repeated bilateral agreements between central government
and certain regional governments have been a constant source of conflict which
almost without exception end up in the Constitutional Court; c) there is
deficient regulation of cooperation agreements between central government and
regional governments; d) the precarious functioning of the Conferences between central government ministers and regional
ministers do not correspond to a “federal” model; and e) neither have the
horizontal Sectorial Conferences (made up only of
representatives of the autonomous executives) nor Conferences
of the president of central government and the regional presidents,
fundamental in the political culture of a number of federal states, been
successful (Aja, 1999; VVAA, 2000). Providing sectorial
conferences with political content, facilitating –instead of blocking-
cooperation between the Autonomous Communities, without the need for the
presence of the representatives of central government, and inaugurating the
celebration of Presidential Conferences to deal with the more important
decisions of State, are unavoidable if we are to grant full political
significance to the principles of political autonomy, coordination, cooperation
and efficiency. These are common practice in other states which have similar
levels of decentralization policy and, in the case of
A clear example of this is
the connection between the inexistence of formal spheres of coordination and
the difficulty shown in reaching basic consensus over questions which affect
economic and social cohesion and territorial equilibrium. Definitively, to give
priority to the meaning of the state over partisan electoral strategies. In the
light of the numerous examples where the “federal” culture fails and
institutional devices are lacking – such as the approval of the two
previous models of financing to the present one, the development and approval
of the National Hydraulic Plan or the route chosen to begin the latest reform
of the basic legislation of education at the university and non-university levels-,
it may be possible to conclude that the Spanish Autonomic State is experiencing
a certain stagnation in its development, generating uncertainties, when not
generating unnecessary confrontations, which on occasion originate in the
display of political styles and talents impregnated with a “jacobin”
vision of the State, more appropriate of an extinct unitary State than the actual Autonomic one.
The political irrelevance of the Senate in the articulation of the
Almost no one would deny the
need for its reform, precisely so that it may be transformed from an
anachronistic institution into the institutional site of the participation of
the Autonomous Communities – the Chamber of territorial representation to quote
the Constitution-, adapting its functions to the process of transference of
political power which the Communities have received over recent decades. To
stop its transformation would be to commit an historical error which would only
contribute to further delaying an inevitable reform which sooner or later will
have to be taken on if we are to comply with the constitutional mandate.
Pascual Maragall recently put forward some of the main
functions which the Senate might claim to control such as the first and
principle voice in matters related to the State of the Autonomies: a) to ensure
the participation of the autonomous presidents; b) the election of senators by
the autonomous parliaments; c) the possibility of the elected senators being
mayors; d) the possibility of the autonomous governments being able to include
points for debate in the proceedings of the day; e) the common institutional
site for multilateral dialogue between Central Government and the Autonomous
Communities; f) chamber of dialogue between the Autonomous Communities
themselves in order to create horizontal cooperation; g) institutional sphere
for channelling the participation of the Communities in the European Union; h)
privileged setting for the recognition of the plurilinguistic
reality of Spain, normalising the use of the different official languages; i) parliamentary seat
of first reading for certain legislative initiatives (Autonomous Statute
reform laws, laws of article 150 of the Constitution, law of the Interterritorial Compensation Fund, covenants and
agreements of cooperation among the Autonomous Communities and the organic law
foreseen in article 157.3 of the Constitution;
j) forum of the first debate of the legislative initiatives of the
autonomous Parliaments; k) seat which houses a permanent parliamentary
commission charged with the debate and tracking of the financing of the
territorial organisations of State; and finally, the institutional sphere in
which to create a territorial-economic affairs Office allowing access to all
the information on economic flows, this being elaborated from a territorial
base (Maragall, 2001).
Entrenching oneself in the fact that the undelayable reform of the Senate would require a previous,
though precise, reform of the Constitution is not reason enough if the degree
of consensus necessary to undertake such a reform of the Senate exists. As the
European example well demonstrates, constitutional reform is not synonymous
with institutional instability. Neither is keeping it intact guarantee of the
opposite.
1.6.The formation of
political will and representation in
Within the present community
institutional framework, the Conference for European Affairs does not resolve
the situationa satisfactorily and consequently cannot
aspire to becoming the instrument of formation of State political will in its ascending phase. On the other hand, the
present situation and the community tendency to favour the regional level in
the development and instrumentation of future European territorial policy beg a
reappraisal of the deficient mechanisms of regional representation in community
decisions-making spheres, which cannot be compensated for by non-decision
making forums such as the Region Committee, nor by the growing presence of the
Autonomous Communities in the Commission Committees.
1.7. Political
autonomy and the principle of subsidiarity.
A distinctive feature of the present Autonomic State is
that its third pillar, the local sphere, has not been given the attention it
deserves until now, despite its outstanding role in the area of public policy
related to local development and social protection. In one or another field, it
has had to assume political responsibility far beyond that which it is obliged
to by the present basic legislation.
The new role of the territories within the global context
and the development of the principle of subsidiarity
demands growing protagonism of the local sphere. It
has forced town councils or metropolitan areas to promote public policies but
without them having the necessary functions and resources to do so. The
prominence reached over recent years by the departments of economic promotion
at the local level –town councils, local associations, county councils– is such
that, in many cases, as with cities of a certain size, the volume of
non-legally obliged programme management and investment and personnel funding
is almost as great as that of the areas which city councils are legally obliged
to serve.
On the other hand, serious social changes such as the
appearance of groups living in conditions of extreme poverty or social
exclusion, the growing demand for assistance by the elderly without means, the
appearance of immigrant populations in agriculturally intensive areas or in the
large cities, the existence of the non-benefit receiving unemployed alongside
adults and youngsters who have not completed the basic compulsory education
level or who are in need of vocational training have forced town councils to
promote these matters, as fundamental as they are lacking in the welfare state,
at the local level without their being legally obliged to do so.
Many of these programmes, which to a large extent have
been improvised to cover up a historical vaccum as
well as new needs, have been created by town halls by economic and social
imperative but without being equipped with sufficient external public resources
destined to that end. Everyday reality and the social pressure exerted by
proximity, coupled with the sensitivity shown by many town halls help to
explain why areas of economic promotion and social services have been developed
by a public administration lacking both the sufficient power and resources to
do so, but who do face the problems daily. In the majority of cases, town
councils have destined their own funds raised from other areas of competence in
which they are obliged to act by law. Only in some matters do they receive
specific financing, either through collaboration agreements with departments
within the respective regional government or through financing obtained from
the European Union (Romero; Garcés, 2001).
It seems reasonable to consider the need to establish a
redistribution of the functions and resources between the regional and local
levels in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
The agenda of pending questions to be resolved in this field is proportional to
the poor degree of attention which it has received until now: a) firstly, a new
and more just system of financing for local administration adapted to the
present reality; b) to make progress in the creation of municipal cooperation
formulas which, showing sufficient willingness, can improve the measure of
problems by reducing the present excessive degree of institutional minifundism; c) going ahead with transferring to local
administrations those autonomous functions which the local level has
demonstrated itself to be more efficient in; d) to reconsider and, where
necessary, modify the functions which up until now have come under the
jurisdiction of county councils, avoiding excessive overlapping with areas
under autonomous management and securing greater efficiency in the area of
cooperation and intermunicipal services; e) to favour
the voluntary creation of instances of supramunicipal
cooperation and advancement; and f) the promotion from central government of a
financing law for metropolitan areas which would help to solve one of the most
serious problems faced by the “real cities”. In short, and definitively, to
undertake the next phase of transference of political power from the central and
autonomous spheres to the local area with the aim of gradually achieving a
public spending distribution of approximately 40 % (central government), 30 %
(autonomous communities), 30 % (local administration).
2. Recognition of plurinationality.
The limits of the
Even if all the questions
related to the full development of the Autonomic State were resolved,
satisfactorily culminating the process of political decentralisation derived of
the Autonomous Agreements of 1992, and resolving the serious inequalities in
the functioning of the egalitarian process of decentralisation as well as
overcoming the jealousies, inertia, moods and styles more appropriate of the
old unitary State than the Autonomic State, the constitutional and political
challenge of the recognition of plurinationality
would still remain. Meaning that, far beyond mere concessions and recognition
of determinate “differential facts”, the plural and incomplete
It serves no purpose to
ignore or try to combat from reactive positions this fundamental question which
affects coexistence and future common politics. Contrary to what has been
believed to be true for more than a century by those (from liberals to marxists) who have decreed the end
of nationalisms, the historical fact is that these have resisted, not only in
This level of problems is,
by far, the most difficult and complex and it will not be an easy task finding
common ground between the different positions. Moreover, the difficulty is probably
greater now than it was at the beginning of the process. In an excellent work,
Torres Vela synthesises the present difficulty in finding a stable setting for
the national reality of
We have gone from implicit
asymmetry to homogenising decentralisation. And although one might think that
the autonomous model has limitations and frustrated expectations in terms of
the political recognition of plurinationality, it is
from the present scenario, and not from the scenario which could have been but
never was, that we need to begin. That is to say, and here lies the main
difficulty of the present political situation, that the process of decentralisation
having been almost completed and political autonomy consolidated, any attempt
whatsoever to recognise the “special statute” of the historical nationalities
would spark off feelings of offence, political tension and immediate demands
for comparative treatment by the regions. And as has been made known by diverse
sensibilities, today it would be “morally unjustifiable” to deny some
territories the degree of self-determination which others can have (Torres
Vela, 1997:11). The reason is that also in the regions “...today there is a
deep rooted feeling of identity which they do not want to give up. And it was never considered an essential
prerequisite that identities were consolidated at a given date in the
distant past. Definitively, what I would
like for myself, I have to accept that others will also want. This begs,
however, the counterargument that the fact that everyone wants it, is not
reason enough for not giving it to me...”(Roca, 1999:
39)
The proposals leading from
the recognition of diversity, this being understood to mean the right to the
recognition of the differences related to language, culture and civil rights
only, is not recognition enough for the peripheral democratic nationalisms.
Neither is the federalist symmetric model a satisfactory model for their
aspirations. They demand the need to look for a clear improvement in
self-government and the recognition of the plurinational,
pluricultural and plurilingual
reality of the State (vid. Sessions Diary of the Spanish Parliament,
The problem is, as it always
was, of an exclusively political nature and it is in this sphere that, as on
previous occasions, compromises and basic consensus must be found. It is of
little help in this case to study the experiences of other countries as each
has its own history, political culture and context making experiences difficult
to export. The uniqueness of the
Definitively, we are dealing
with the old dilemma between equality and
asymmetry at the heart of plurinational states.
And on this point, it does not appear likely that in
Although comparisons are not
of any great use, the Canadian example may help us to understand the
insurmountable difficulties which arise when trying to acknowledge the “special
statute” of a differentiated community while respecting the principle of
equality, without deconstructing the basic structure and it being accepted by
all. Some of the elements which form part of the long political debate in this
country and which have been emphasised by specialists ought to be remembered, despite
the distances: a) “...The history of Canada, notes Milne, shows the struggle
and gradual triumph of the principle of equality in the face of the distinct
forms of asymmetry in Canadian life. If this is so, all future constitutional
designers will have to think very carefully before toying with this option...”
(Milne, 1999:71); b) during the ratification process of the Lake Meech Agreement, which included the acknowledgement of
Quebec as a “distinct society”, the political tensions surrounding equality and
asymmetry ended up blocking the political process (Milne, op.cit.:
86); c) “...the special statute, claims this author, always occupies an
ambiguous constitutional zone, constantly pushed towards the ultimate political
objective of independence. Thus, the defenders of the special statute cannot
promise the stability of a country with this option (Milne, op.cit.:
71, 86, 87); d) Stéphane Dion
goes even further: strongly asymmetric federalism is possible, he points out,
but is not a road which countries frequently go down. With regards
Some final considerations.
The need to undertake a new reading of the
so-called constitutional bloc on the basis of a new generation of Political
Agreements of State is being demanded from diverse spheres. This seems to be
the most adequate road to take to overcome the present situation. It does not
seem reasonable to close or block any possibility of dialogue sheltering
oneself in the parliamentary majorities of the General Courts or to try to
overcome the situation by legislative initiatives which do not enjoy the
necessary degree of consensus. Any agreed proposal to move forward in the
construction of the State should be carried out with integrating vocation,
steering clear of reasoning based on political indifference or excluding
attitudes.
What is needed, in my
opinion, is a new pact of State which will not repeat the mistakes of the past.
By pact of State one should not understand yet another new agreement between
the two parties with majority representation in the Spanish Parliament given
that probably part of the institutional breakdowns which have plagued the State
model over the last twenty years have been the result of what many consider to
be an important political error: the exclusion of peripheral nationalisms from
important political decisions which have resulted in the development of only
one of the possible paths of title VIII of the Constitution. By pact of State
one should understand an agreement, necessarily of an embracing nature, which
incorporates the political voice of democratic nationalisms and which tackles
the discussion of the model of the State with its eyes set on the future rather
than the past, whether this be near or far, and bearing in mind the new
European framework. An agreement which uses as a means of search for basic
consensus, pragmatism, institutional and constitutional loyalty and the will to
gradually move forward in solving the problems we face and based on at least
the same degree of institutional consensus as that reached at the beginning of
the process. Not going down this road would mean contemplating other possible
scenarios which are not considered desirable from the point of view of this
text.
What might the elements be
around which a new Pact of State could be built which would better fulfil
autonomy? If the political will existed, it would not be an impossible task to
incorporate substantial improvements at the three levels of problems referred
to throughout this work. With the exception of the reform of the Senate, almost
none of the possible solutions would require reform of the current
constitutional framework, which is also considered to be a difficult task by
the nationalist parties themselves (CiU, 1999), but
simply a more flexible and pro autonomous reading of it. The vast majority of
the constituent elements of a new political agreement would require the maximum
exploration of the possibilities which are offered by the Constitution and the
Statutes of Autonomy and, were it the case, an alternative development of the
constitutional precepts. The following does not pretend to be an exhaustive
only a possible list of suggestions which could be included in a future
political agenda: 1) reform of the Senate transforming it into that which
article 69.1 of the Constitution establishes: a territorial chamber; 2)
improvement of the financing model in order to guarantee the principle of equity;
3) revision of the distribution of functions among the three public
administrations, increasing the present level of functions of the local level
and consequently guaranteeing a redistribution of public spending; 4) the
creation of Presidential Conferences and Sectorial
Conferences with the same degree of institutional relevance and political
decision-making as they enjoy in other countries of the European Union; 5)
reflect the plural nature of the State in all institutions, national and
international, which represent it, especially in the cultural and educational
spheres; 6) regulate the presence of the Autonomous Communities in the
decision-making organs of the European Union in connection with those questions
which come under their jurisdiction; 7) regulate the formulation of Agreements
as well as other forms of horizontal cooperation among European regions; 8)
deepen the acknowledgement of the principle of diversity by exploring new
possibilities based on article 2, articles 149.1 and 150.1 and 150.2, those
which refer to cultural differential dimensions; 9) culminating the process of
transference provided by the respective Statutes of Autonomy should also be
considered an undelayable task; 10) beginning a new
phase of reform of the Statutes of Autonomy with the aim of increasing the
autonomy of the Autonomous Communities, exploring new possibilities (without
excluding a priori differential
developments) and creating new figures such as those which have been recently
suggested (the use of the regional languages by the State administration and
the Judiciary; the introduction of symbolic elements; deconcentration
of the General Council of the Judiciary; creating functions related to justice
administration, judicial, registrar and notary demarcations; the taking up of
tax management; activating the functions inherent in the ordinary
representation of the State by the President of the Autonomous Community; the
introduction of a historical rights clause...) (CiU,
1999).
The historical dimension of
the track beaten to the present is unquestionable, as commented in the opening
pages of this paper, but the suggestions proposed here equally give an
indication of the measure of the work still to be done in continuing the
construction of a state composed such as the Spanish one in a political process
which by necessity must be and remain open.
References.
Aja, E. (1999): El Estado Autonómico. Federalismo y hechos diferenciales,
Aparicio, M.A. (1999): “Aproximación a la regulación contenida en el texto de la constitución española de 1978 sobre la distribución territorial
del poder político”, en Aparicio, M.A. (dir.),
La descentralización y el Federalismo.
Nuevos modelos de Autonomía Política (España, Bélgica, Canadá, Italia y Reino Unido),
Comisión Europea
(1998): Estado de la aplicación
del Reglamento (CEE) núm.
2078/92: evaluación
Comisión Europea
(1999): Sexto Informe Periódico, Luxemburgo.
Convergència i
Unió (1999): Informe sobre la millora de l´autogovern, texto mecanografiado inédito.
Delperée, F. (1999): “El reparto de responsabilidades”, en
Aparicio, M.A. (dir.), op.cit.,
pp. 85-95.
Dion, S. (1999): “El federalismo fuertemente asimétrico: improbable e indeseable”,
en Fossas, E.; Requejo, F.
(eds.), Asimetría federal y estado plurinacional,
Fossas, E. (1999): “Asimería y plurinacionalidad en
el Estado Autonómico”, en Fossas, E.; Requejo, F. (eds.),
op. cit., pp. 275-301.
González, F. (1999): Cuadernos de la Fundación Alternativas, núm. 2, pp. 44-49,
Held, D. (1997): La democracia y el
orden global,
Herrero de Miñón,
M. (1998): Derechos Históricos y Constitución,
Kymlicka, W. (1999): Nacionalismo minoritario dentro de las democracias
liberales”, en García, S.; Lukes, S. (comps.), Ciudadanía: justicia social, identidad y participación,
Lejeune, Y. (1999): “El federalismo belga”, en Fossas, E.; Requejo, F. (eds.),
op. cit., 217-231.
Maragall, P. (2001): “Nuevo federalismo en España y Europa: la propuesta catalana para España”,
Intervención en el Club Siglo
XXI,
Milne, D. (1999): “Igualdad o asimetría ¿por qué elegir?”,
en Fossas, E.; Requejo,F.
(eds.), op.cit., pp. 69-97.
Monasterio, C.; Pérez,
F.; Sevilla, J.V.; Solé, J.
(1994): Informe sobre el actual sistema de financiación autonómica y sus problemas, texto original en
dos vols. Existe publicación
en 1995,
Pas, W.; Van Nieuwenhove, J. (1999): “La estructura
asimétrica
Pérez, F. (1997): “El sistema de financiación de las Comunidades Autónomas: eficiencia y equidad”, XXIII Reunión de Estudios Regionales,
Pons, E. (1999): “El federalismo belga”, en Aparicio, M.A. (dir.), op. cit., pp. 61-84.
Requejo, F. (1999): “La acomodación “federal” de la plurinacionalidad.
Democracia liberal y federalismo
plural en España”, en Fossas,
E. y Requejo, F. (eds.), Op. cit., pp. 303-344.
Romero, J. (2000): “De l´Estat unitari a l´Estat autonòmic. Realitzacions, insuficiències i límits
Romero, J.; Garcés,J. (2001): “Estado de Bienestar, cohesión social y crecimiento”, en Romero,J.; Morales,A.; Salom,J.; Vera,F., La periferia emergente. La comunidad Valenciana
en la Europa de las regiones,
Ruggeri, A. (1999): “El regionalismo italiano, del “modelo” constitucional a las propuestas de la Bicameral ¿Innovación o “racionalización” de
viejas experiencias?”, en Aparicio, M.A. (dir.), op. cit., pp. 169-205.
Sánchez Ruiz, A.I. (1997): Federalismo e integración europea. La distribución de competencias
en los sistemas alemán y comunitario,
Torres Vela, J. (1997): “Andaucía en el Estado autonómico”, Papers
de la Fundació Rafael Campalans,
núm. 101, pp. 1-13,
VVAA (2000): Informe Comunidades Autónomas, 1999,
Woehrling, J. (1999): “El reconocimiento constitucional de las diferencias culturales en Canadá”, en Aparicio, M.A. (dir.), op. cit., pp. 115-142.
(*) Juan Romero is Professor
in Human Geography at the