Geoscience Reference
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the national Parliament, that is, when the political levers originally devised in
1978 fail to contain the electoral dominance of nationalist parties in Catalonia
and the Basque Country.
The interplay between economic geography and fiscal structures also
emerges through the behavior of those regions benefiting from the status quo.
After the 1997 agreement of a regional financing system until 2001, Andalusia,
Extremadura, and Castilla-la-Mancha decided to opt out of the new system,
rejecting the increase in fiscal autonomy offered by the reform, and staying
under the umbrella of the previous system. According to the analyses above
( Figures 7.2 and 7.3 ), all three regions, key electoral strongholds for the Social-
ist Party, clearly benefited from a more integrated and highly redistributive
fiscal structure. Given that they had the option, it is hardly surprising that
they chose not to accept higher levels of fiscal autonomy. On the other hand,
among those regions controlled by the conservatives (PP), two groups emerge:
those that endorse the reform as they benefit from it (e.g., Madrid or Valencia);
and those whose concerns were ironed out by the fact that the central govern-
ment targeted additional resources so that they also enjoyed more resources at
their disposal than under the previous system(e.g., Galicia or Castilla-Leon). 21
The reform of 2001 presents a puzzle. Given that the conservative party
(PP) enjoys an absolute majority from March 2000 and before 1996 never
supported fiscal decentralization, what accounts for its support for higher lev-
els of autonomy in 2001-2002? To address this question it is important to
revisit the tension between harmonization and asymmetry at the core of the
politics of decentralization in Spain (Beramendi and Maiz 2004 ;Leon-Alfonso
2007 ). During the years of minority government, nationalist parties pursued an
agenda that went beyond the design of fiscal structures and advocated a more
encompassing constitutional reform.
Indeed, in July 1998 the PNV (Basque Country), CiU (Catalonia), and the
BNG (Galicia) committed to create a working partnership to pursue a rather
indeterminate “con-federal” solution to what they perceived as a lack of artic-
ulation of the multiple national identities within the Spanish State. 22 Leaving
aside the vagueness of their statements, these three parties agreed upon a set
of minima for the constitutional reform: 1) explicit acknowledgment of the
plurinational character of Spain, with the only subjects of sovereignty being
their three historical ACs and Castilla (a term referring to the rest of Spain);
2) the transformation of the Senate into a perfectly asymmetrical territorial
chamber; 3) the establishment in Galicia and Catalonia of the special fiscal
regime currently enjoyed by the Basque Country and Navarra; 4) the reform
of the Constitutional Court so that they can take part in the appointment of
its members and have some representation on it; 5) the achievement of full
21 Le on ( 2009 ) offers a detailed analysis of how different national governments use this strategy
to smooth out resistance to change among those benefiting from the status quo.
22 The contents and principles of these proposals can be found in the background documents of
the Barcelona, Gasteiz, and Santiago meetings.
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