Bulletin n. 3/2014
February 2015
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Cámara Villar Gregorio
    LA REFORMA FEDERAL EN ESPAÑA: DIAGNÓSTICO Y PROPUESTAS
    in Italian Papers on Federalism , 1/2014 ,  2014
    The "autonomic" Spanish State lives today an acute crisis. Although, from a material point of view, it gravitates in the orbit of federal systems, it is not a federal state, because in 1978 lacked an express constituent will in this sense. The autonomic Spanish system does not have, therefore, the degree of legitimacy that such will could give it, nor the fullness and consistency of the organizational characteristics of the federal form. For this reason also it presents important lacks and incoherencies in its articulation and in its operation. The autonomic Spanish system is undergoing for years an attrition for the tensions arising from the opening offered by the principle enacting and the resulting conflict between the State and the Autonomous Communities; Now you add that induced by the acute economic crisis. Today it must above all deal with his questioning, both by political forces that support processes of centralization, and on the part of radical nationalism that manifests itself in Catalonia and in the Basque Country, which finds expression in the claims of sovereignty and aspirations of confederation sign, whose culmination is represented by the open challenge independence of Catalonia. All this erodes highly the effectual legitimacy. This article explains the basic elements of the position held by a discussion group, composed primarily of constitutional and other legal and political Andalusians, coordinated by Gregorio Camara. This group has proposed, as a "natural" and logical outcome of the autonomic state, its federal reform, in view of the legitimacy of the overall and structural coherence between the elements that compose it. That proposal, which the authors call "pluralistic, social and cooperative", has affected one adopted in Granada October 6, 2013 by the Territorial Council of the PSOE (Hacia una estructura territorial del Estado y la llamada Declaración de Granada, Un nuevo pacto territorial: La España de todos). Among the reforms set out in it include that of the Senate, that of the division of powers between the state and the autonomous communities, that of the judiciary, in order to adapt to the federal structure of the state and the constitutionalization of the system of regional finance and of vertical horizontal cooperation instruments in intergovernmental relations, as well as that of the Conference of Presidents. As regards the cooperation, it seeks to limit bilateralism to the aspects of "hechos diferenciales" and to the specific issues that do not relate to other autonomous communities. The proposal also envisages in the Constitution the strengthening of the guarantee of autonomy and financial regime of local authorities. The delineated design is based on the idea that federalism responds to a deeply democratic conception of the state, which are elements of the plurality of levels of government, the existence of forms of self-government and shared government and the capacity to ensure equality complement the autonomy. It is, on the one hand, to ensure people of all territories the same basic conditions, in relation to the conditions of life, to the enjoyment of the rights, to the observance of duties, and, secondly, to promote, thanks to self-government of the territories, enhancement, in all its richness, pluralism of identities, cultures, languages, traditions, forms of social life and institutional arrangements, expressed by the same territories, ensuring also the participation of institutions of the corresponding level to the institutions of the federation.
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