Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Article 143CE of the Spanish Constitution presents the standard procedure:
provinces are the unit of references for the process. For an AC constitution to
be passed, it must to be approved by two-thirds of the local electorate, whose
population represents the majority in each province or island involved. The
initial level of power for each AC shall be adopted within the limits presented
in
Table 7.1
. Once the constitution is passed, the initial level of power will not
be susceptible to any expansion for five years (art. 148.2CE). In relation to this
procedure, the second method of access (art.151CE) is exceptional because,
after introducing a few additional requirements, it allows faster and more far-
reaching initial access to powers. And, even more importantly, it removes the
five-year limit on the possibility of acquiring control over further domains and
jurisdictions. The rationale underlying this distinction is rooted in the political
need to allow those regions with strong and fairly mobilized national identities
to avoid the constraints applicable to the rest of the country. In fact, the final
dispositions of the constitutional text state clearly that those territories enjoy-
ing full access to autonomy in the past could proceed along the lines of this
second access method.
But real politics could not be kept so simple. At the very early stages of the
process, the Union of the Democratic Center (UCD) launched an attempt to dis-
tinguish between two levels of autonomy: the maximum level constitutionally
recognized (autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque Country
6
), and the mini-
mum level for the rest of the country. In this proposal, the approval process for
the constitutions of regions in the second group was to be the same as for any
other ordinary law, with no further institutional protection. Political pressures
and mobilizations in Galicia (the third region with a formally approved consti-
tution during the II Republic) and Andalucia frustrated the UCD's attempt. In
the end, all Estatutos (AC constitutions) had the same level of national consti-
tutional protection, but very different levels of content. The Basque Country,
Catalonia, Galicia, and Andalucia achieved much higher levels of autonomy
than the rest of the regions, with the exception of the Canary Islands and the
Comunitat Valenciana after they joined the high-autonomy group in late 1982.
As we shall see below, the consequences of this gap were far reaching for both
the political dynamics of the system and the evolution of fiscal arrangements.
6
The constant presence of a violent terrorist organization claiming independence in the Basque
Country must be regarded as a major and special source of asymmetry. Violence has altered
the structure of the bargaining process and modified the relative position that one major actor,
the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), would have had otherwise. In fact, the evolution of both the
political profile and the strategies of this party illustrate my case clearly. Because of violence, the
PNV's position is that of a gatekeeper, with one foot in each world. It generates both costs and
constraints (impossible full acceptance of the Constitution, risk of being blamed from both sides),
but also further bargaining resources (monopoly in the management of any possible solution, in
the relations with Madrid, in the relations with the social network of ETA) which have allowed
the Basque Country to achieve and maintain the highest levels of political autonomy (Corcuera
1991
: 70-125).
