Abstract
In this work, I propose to share some ideas regarding the federal development of our political system. I fear they will not augur well for federalists: I do not think our territorial system will evolve towards a federal model—quite the contrary. As far as it does evolve, I believe it will incline more towards homogeneity than diversity. These are the initial impressions that I will later seek to verify and that may orient this work. However, confirming these subjective impressions is not the primary aim of this article. The fundamental idea is that the relationship between federalism and diversity is based more on interest than inevitable attraction. I will explain this subsequently in the introductory section, but it may also prove useful in the general discussion. Although diversity has fitted in very little and indeed badly with constitutionalism, I believe that a federation without federalism is not necessarily the solution to Spain’s territorial problems. Neither is it the solution in the version of federalism promoted by significant sectors of doctrine. Perhaps the constitutional formula of the so-called Autonomous State, due precisely to the peculiarities that distinguish it from the canonical federal state, is more suited to accommodating diversity. I will deal with this in the following section. I will now refer to the ideas regarding federalism present in discussions concerning the Autonomous State. I have the impression that if, in the birth of the Autonomous State, there are political demands based on diversity, in a large part of doctrinal federalism re-centralisation is justified and the irrelevance of diversity is postulated. I finish not with a conclusion as such but rather with some final thoughts. The Spanish territorial model does not enable us to reach definite conclusions regarding the issue under study since it lacks the necessary stability. Such a conclusion might prove feasible if the model were enshrined in the Constitution, which would enable it to attain the maximum possible legal safety.
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Notes
- 1.
King (1982), pp. 74–76.
- 2.
- 3.
For example, in Otero and Hernández (2010), pp. 76–77: The opinions of various experts from civil society are synthesised and, in that which refers to the autonomous model, calls to avoid inefficiencies abound. http://fundacion.everis.com/FUListRepositoryFiles/TransformaEspa%C3%B1a.pdf, consultation: 06/10/2011.
- 4.
- 5.
Caamaño (2004), pp. 353–378 (p. 356).
- 6.
I have used Tönnies (1979). Tönnies says that the nation “can only exist thanks to its (of the citizens) united rational will, even when that may be a necessary and involuntary product of those wills. Not only is it founded on a present accidental unity, but also on the essential unity which outlives the generations” (p. 254).
- 7.
Sieyès (2002). From the first chapter it is stated that the third state is the complete nation. The definition is on p. 5.
- 8.
Mancini (1873), pp. 1–64.
- 9.
Mill (1980), pp. 359–366.
- 10.
Cánovas del Castillo (1884), pp. 11–97. On p. 51, he mentions the principle of nationalities and states: “The existence of the current States distributed around the learned world, surely highly worthy of respect may, and in general must, subsist for centuries: but to deny that it is better constructed where there is a single nation, or race or a single language, or, let alone dialects fundamentally linked to the common language, and where all the population is full of equal memories and who love identical traditions, imbued, in sum, by a common spirit, seems like denying the day its light”.
- 11.
O’Leary (2001), pp. 273–296 (p. 278).
- 12.
Elazar (1987), p. 12.
- 13.
Simeon and Conway (2001), pp. 338–365 (pp. 340–341).
- 14.
Friedrich (1968), p. 39: “Federalism, by providing channels for intergroup communication, by delaying precipitate action and offering a stage for intergroup compromise, seems to be one of the political instrumentalities for negotiating the problem of a divided loyalty, by affording both integrative and differentiating forces some room to operate in”; Burgess (2009), pp. 428–440 (pp. 430–431).
- 15.
Pizzorrusso (1986), pp. 217–235.
- 16.
De Tocqueville (1837), p. 20.
- 17.
García-Pelayo (1984), pp. 233–234.
- 18.
In the contemporary world, it is difficult to find codes that are at the same time homogeneous and closed per se. Therefore, I believe that the competence principle is more useful than the hierarchical principle for explaining contemporary public law. See, Modugno (2002), pp. 11–12.
- 19.
- 20.
Autonomous Agreements signed by the Government of the Nation and the PSOE, 31st July, 1981, Madrid: Presidency of the Government, 1981.
- 21.
Autonomous Agreements of 28th February, 1992, Madrid: Ministry for Public Administration, 1992.
- 22.
Article 110 and onwards of the Statute of Catalonia. According to Constitutional Court Ruling 31/2010, of 28 June, regarding the Catalan Statute, Article 110 should be interpreted in terms of Legal Basis 59. In Article 111 (CSA), it was hoped to limit the capacity of basic legislation of the State by stipulating that it had to contain “principles or minimum common norms with the status of a law, except in the suppositions which are determined in accordance with the Constitution and the present Statute”. This observation was declared unconstitutional due to the arguments contained in Legal Basis 60.
- 23.
Preamble to the CSA: “The Catalan Parliament, embracing the feeling and will of the citizens of Catalonia, has defined Catalonia, by a wide majority, as a nation. The Spanish Constitution, in its second Article, recognises the national reality of Catalonia as a nationality”. Article 8.1, CSA: “Catalonia, defined as a nationality in Article 1, has as its national symbols the flag, public holidays and anthem”. Constitutional Court Ruling 31/2010 establishes that those expressions should be interpreted in terms of the Legal Basis 12: “For all these reasons, the terms “nation” and “national reality” with respect to Catalonia, used in the preamble, lack legal interpretative effectiveness which, given the special significance of a statutory preamble, would thus stipulate in the Ruling; and the term “national” in Article 8.1, CSA, is in accordance with the Constitution interpreted in the sense that said term refers exclusively, in meaning and use, to the symbols of Catalonia, “defined as a nationality” (Article 1 CSA) and integrated in the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation” as Article 2, SC, establishes and would thus be stipulated in the Ruling”.
- 24.
Constitutional Court Ruling 31/2010, Legal Basis 14.
- 25.
The Statutes of Autonomy complete the Constitution, according to Constitutional Court Ruling 247/2007, of 12th December Legal Basis 6. Ruling 31/2010, Legal Basis 3, with which I disagree, understands that considering the Statutes as “materially constitutional norms (…) has no scope beyond the purely doctrinal or academic”.
- 26.
Constitutional Court Ruling 31/2010, Legal Basis 2, admitted that the challenge—in this case, the Catalan Statute of Autonomy—could “legitimately correspond to political reasons or opportunism”. It should be pointed out that the Autonomous Community Process Bill, derived from the Agreements of 1981, was challenged before the Constitutional Court by, among others, 50 Members of Parliament, including Catalan Nationalists. The challenge gave rise to Ruling 76/1983, of 5th August.
- 27.
A comparative summary is contained in El Mundo, 14/07/2010, p. 7. On the previous page, Luis Ángel Sanz echoed the stupefaction of Carles Bonet, then Senator for Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, when verifying how the Grupo Popular copied a precept, which it challenged, of the Catalan Statute and presented it as an amendment in the proposal for a Statute for the Balearic Islands.
- 28.
To which we have to add that the President of the Constitutional Court was recorded in a conversation with a lawyer who was investigated by the police. The Supreme Court shelved the proceedings regarding this matter: “The Supreme Court closes the file on the proceedings regarding the conversation of Casas with a lawyer”, Público, 05/06/2008, consultation: 27/10/2010, http://bit.ly/hxAk8h. El Periódico de Catalunya on the 2 July, 2010, published the legal grounds of the Constitutional Court’s Ruling (31/2010) and the President of the Court ordered an investigation into the leak (El Periódico de Catalunya, 03/07/2010, http://bit.ly/d0DED6, consultation: 18/12/2010. She had not ordered an investigation after El País (17/04/2010, p. 14) gave advanced notice of the ruling.
- 29.
I developed this idea in Marín (2006).
- 30.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero: “I have launched what we could call a federal programme. It is a model typical of the Federal States, a programme of financial coordination where the central Government provides resources for an objective – in this case an objective which everybody can consider reasonable – to which the Autonomous Communities contribute and shared action is agreed. Its aim is not to invade the territory of any competence, but rather to agree the areas where the obligations pertain to both State and Autonomous Communities, because logically there are competence rules for positing the perspective in terms of the responsibility of the central Government or the Autonomous Communities”. Diary of the sessions of Congress, number 82, 2009, IX Legislature, p. 11, 13/05/2009. See also the speech of Jordi Sevilla, Minister for Public Administration in 2004, before the Senate: “Cooperation is the essence of the process which we want to set up and we are sure that its logic – which has an enormous power – will eventually be introduced in all the territories. The dynamic of cooperation in search of an effective joint ruling of an Autonomous Spain demands the widest possible agreements in which all the political forces with parliamentary representation can participate. To integrate plurality is, in sum, the meaning of what we have to do. It is a question, therefore, of initiating a new stage, leaving behind the mechanics of confrontation and laying new foundations for a new shared management of public matters within a framework of cooperation”. A speech, at his own request, to explain the general outlines of the autonomy policy of the new Government: Autonomous Community General Commission, Diary of the sessions of the Senate, number 25, 2004, VIII Legislature, p. 4, 3/06/2004.
- 31.
- 32.
Diary of sessions of Congress, number 2, 2004, VIII Legislature, p. 19, 15/04/2004.
- 33.
A critical point of view regarding the generalisation of self-government was expressed by someone who presided over an Autonomous Community for 20 years. Bono (2011). In the article it is also said that “This was done, as I have explained, to please the Army at the end of the dictatorship which threatened to rebel if the Constitution recognised the right to self-government of the Basque Country and Catalonia”. José Bono was Minister of Defence.
- 34.
De Enterría (1985), pp. 411–416 (p. 411).
- 35.
Reagan and Sanzone (1981), p. 3. Italics by the authors.
- 36.
. See, Benson (1941), p. 21.
- 37.
González Encinar (1991), pp. 49–62 (p. 60).
- 38.
Rose (1985), pp. 13–32 (p. 21).
- 39.
De Enterría (1980), pp. 13–23 (p. 26).
- 40.
De Enterría (1982), pp. 63–94 (pp. 76–77).
- 41.
The Constitutional Court does not justify the existence of that principle at all. Constitutional Court Ruling 18/1982, of 4 May, Legal Basis 14, states: “As the State Lawyer alleges, the obligation to remit the “Official Gazettes” is explained as a duty of collaboration stemming from the general duty of reciprocal aid between State and Autonomous Authorities. This duty, which it is not necessary to justify in specific precepts, is found to be implicit in the essence per se of the type of territorial organisation of the State which is implanted in the Constitution, although we should recall that that the principle of coordination, in relation to Autonomous Communities, is elevated by the fundamental norm to the consideration of one of the principles of action (Articles. 103.1 and 152)”. What “is not necessary to justify in specific concepts” is the “duty of reciprocal aid” and not the principle of cooperation. The italics are ours.
- 42.
The reference of the Council of Ministers of 13th February, 2009, regarding a programme of aid to victims of domestic violence stated: “Although we are dealing with a competence of the Autonomous Communities, the Ministry for Equality distributes this fund, within the programmes to be implemented regarding comprehensive social assistance for victims, to strengthen and prioritise those devoted to assisting foreign women and minors exposed to this type of violence”. http://bit.ly/sobWLQ, consultation: 29/12/2011.
- 43.
- 44.
Montalvo (2000), pp. 55–56.
- 45.
For 2009, see the agreements of the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs with Aragon in the BOE 22/01/2009; of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism with Andalusia in the BOE 01/10/2009; of the Ministry of Education, Social Policy and Sport with the Valencian Community in the BOE 09/02/2009; of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism with the Valencian Community in the BOE 30/03/2009; of the Ministry of Work and Immigration with Andalusia in the BOE 24/02/2009; of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism with the Balearic Islands in the BOE 28/03/2009; and of the Ministry of Equality, also with the Balearic Islands, in the BOE 23/10/2009.
- 46.
El País, 15/10/2010, http://bit.ly/9gNA9K, consultation: 16/10/2010.
- 47.
Beteta (2009), p. 12.
- 48.
Diary of sessions of the Senate, number 80. IX Legislature, 2010, p. 4213, 25/05/2010. On 30th August 2003, the PSOE had approved a document entitled: “Plural Spain: constitutional Spain, Spain united, Spain positive”, http://bit.ly/sPHcbf, consultation: 30/12/2012. It is curious to recall what Javier Arenas said in 1999, when he gave a talk about Autonomous Communities at the XIII National Congress of the PP (“Plural Spain [sic], a common future project”): “[I find it] necessary that after the natural phase of claiming competences there will be a new phase in which the shared assumption of responsibilities, proposals for cohesion and improvement of the common model predominate according to the efficacy and efficiency of the service to citizens”. El País, 09/09/1999, http://bit.ly/tTMdzF , consultation: 30/12/2012.
- 49.
- 50.
It was the demand of the Catalan nationalist Member of Parliament Duran i Lleida in the investiture debate of Rodríguez Zapatero in 2004: Diary of sessions of the Congress of Deputies, number, 2, 2004, VIII Legislature, p. 44, 15/04/2004. There (p. 73), the Basque Nationalist Member of Parliament Erkoreka directly demanded recognition of the multinational nature of the State.
- 51.
Council of State (2006), pp. 329–332 (p. 331).
- 52.
- 53.
Aguirre (2011), p. 16.
- 54.
Linz (1973) pp. 33–116 (p. 99).
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Marín, X.A. (2013). The Federal Option and Constitutional Management of Diversity in Spain. In: López - Basaguren, A., Escajedo San Epifanio, L. (eds) The Ways of Federalism in Western Countries and the Horizons of Territorial Autonomy in Spain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27717-7_27
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