GOVERNMENT IN SPAIN
Excluding the EU, there are at least four levels of government administration in Spain. These are:
1. National Spanish government – based in Madrid.
2. Regional government – each of the Autonomous Regions in Spain, such as the Comunitat de Valenciana or the Comunidad Autónoma Vasca (Basque country) have an elected government. There are 17 of these Autonomous Regions and two autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla).
3. Diputacion – there are 50 provinces within the Autonomous Regions. So, for example, the Comunitat de Valencia comprises three provinces (Castellon, Valencia and Alicante) whilst Catalonia has four (Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Taragona) with the autonomous region of Madrid having only one (not surprisingly called Madrid!). Each province has administrative duties.
4. Municipios (municipalities or town halls) of which there are thousands, varying in size from a few hundred people to hundreds of thousands. These have considerable local influence and are administered and controlled by elected bodies headed by a Mayor.
In addition, there is a peculiar administrative body called a Mancomunidad, the offices of which you may see occasionally. A Mancomunidad is a voluntary association of local town halls (normally around a large town or city) which aims to reduce the cost of infrastructure related works.
In effect, several town halls may join a Mancomunidad and then ‘out-source’ certain functions to the Mancomunidad, such as rubbish clearance or the raising of certain taxes. The theory is that rather than having five or six (say) rubbish clearance departments (one for each town hall) only one is necessary within a Mancomunidad to administer the requirements of all the associated town halls. This saves money and provides greater negotiating power to the Mancomunidad than would be available to one small town hall.
Of course, few people would argue that so many levels of government administration in Spain are really necessary. Indeed, there are arguments to suggest that some layers of Spanish government should be cut altogether to make Spain more efficient and cost-effective.
The problem, of course, is that after the death of General Franco (1975) and under the 1978 Constitution the government of Spain was decentralized to ensure that Spain ‘held together’ as a united country. This was particularly important given the desire for independence of the Basque country and Catalonia.
The problem, needless to say, was that what is ‘good for the goose is good for the ganda’ and any regional independence provided to the Basque country and Catalonia had to be extended also to every other region in Spain. The result was the creation of the Autonomous Regions – something that had never existed previously in Spain.
Few democrats would argue that bringing democracy down to the lowest possible point is a bad thing. Indeed, to allow local communities to decide upon how they are governed can only be seen in a positive light in terms of individual freedom. However, there are grounds to suggest that in Spain this has not equated with efficient overall government. Indeed, there are ‘17 ways of doing things in the 17 different regions of Spain’ – which can be confusing and inefficient on many different levels.
Meanwhile, the Municipios (the town halls) have significant power, not least with regard to planning. This, as was seen during the Spanish property boom, resulted in chaos, a lack of any coherent strategy and rampant corruption. Clearly, far too much power had been devolved to local town hall Mayors who, at best, lacked any strategic knowledge of what the property market required or could stand.
Similar defects extended to the local savings banks in Spain (the Cajas) which were also under local and regional political control. These became the instruments of local politicians who made disastrous investments during the boom period. Indeed, their actions led to the near collapse of many of the Cajas which were over-burdened by appalling exposure to the property crash.
Certainly, the present economic crisis in Spain is bringing existing Spanish government levels of administration into question – not least because the debt levels of the Autonomous Regions of Spain and local Spanish town halls is unsustainable. Indeed, these debts could seriously destabalise the Spanish economy and delay any recovery.
Needless to say, one of the problems of Spanish government decentralisation is the lack of control the national government of Spain has over the Autonomous Regions. This is something of a concern at the moment with the Spanish government implementing austerity measures to comply with EU demands – which not all of the Autonomous Regions are following or can be made to follow…
Nick Snelling – Culture Spain