Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

Regionalism is a notably elusive political idea. In the paper an attempt is first made to identify various propositions that are general among contemporary European regionalists: A commitment to territorial reform of a nonfederal character, a belief that regional autonomy promotes political stability and spreads prosperity, and a notion of complementarity between European integration and internal devolution. In the second part of the paper the relevance of these propositions to Spain are considered.

In this paper it is argued that there is a built-in dilemma in the 1978 Spanish Constitution which can be understood and solved only by comparing the ‘formal’ and the ‘real’ Constitutions of the country. The present shared quasi-federalism will prove inadequate in the long term because it fails to recognize that, for most of the time, political centralization and economic growth cannot occur together in Spain. This fact arises because Spain is a country with an ‘inverted centre-periphery’; the political and economic centres are at different locations. As a result future policy should be orientated towards greater decentralized powers, but with more effective integration of the nationalist parties of the Autonomous Communities into national policies.

Under the Spanish Constitution of 1979 the existence of an intermediate level of government, the Autonomous Communities, has been recognised, and during the period 1979–1985 an important process of decentralisation has taken place. However, the establishment of a pattern of autonomous finance has demonstrated significant deficiencies, and a revision of the system has been approved recently which could lead to improvements in some of the relevant respects.

In this paper the question of tax assignment in multiple-level systems of government is addressed. Existing economic theory of fiscal federalism, which is the main source of information on tax assignment, is reviewed and various criticisms of this theory, as a normative theory, are outlined which indicate major difficulties in application to practice. Where a strong desire for decentralisation exists, such as in Spain, an alternative political-economic approach is suggested. This is then used to comment on developments in Spain where, it is concluded, the present assignment of taxing powers is insufficient to guarantee the autonomy of the regional governments. For Spain, regional access to a share of the VAT or personal income tax is suggested as the best option for tax reform in order to offer sufficient regional tax autonomy.

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 introduced a dramatic change into the political organization by decentralizing the existing State into seventeen regional governments with a broad range of authority. This transformation involved a ‘services transfer process’ from the central government and a simultaneous evaluation of the financial resources needed by the regional governments.

The paper contains an analysis of the main features of this process, focusing on the various problems that have arisen in the estimation of the cost of the services transferred. Finally, some recommendations are offered for the future multilevel public financial system, which are in accordance with the present Spanish regulations on this subject.

In this paper it is argued that the present fiscal imbalance in the finance of the autonomous communities can be remedied only by consideration of a number of principles of financial structure—in particular, sufficiency and solidarity. This leads to a proposal for reform which is based on (1) the fixing, as a percentage of GDP, of a global sum of revenue required for each level of government; (2) allowing autonomous tax-rate setting of ceded taxes; and (3) the introduction of a reformed block-grant, based on a percentage of GDP and distributed to regions on the basis of required revenue (this emphasises need and resource equalisation). The proposals are intended as a complete model in which minimal change from existing procedures is required.

This paper contains an outline of the relations of the Autonomous Communities to the Spanish State, and emphasizes the specific character of Catalonia. The Catalan Statute of Autonomy is discussed, accompanied by a description of the institutions of self government: The Parliament, the President of the Generalitat, the Executive Council, and other syndicates. Next, an outline of the political forces and developmental requirements in Catalonia since the Statute is given, which concludes with an assessment of future prospects. Problems for the future are identified, particularly in the tendency to standardize between the Autonomous Communities, in the operations of the Court (which has limited autonomous actions), in the system of finance, and in the entry to the EEC.

This paper is a review of Italy's stuttering progress towards regional autonomy. At the unification of Italy in 1860, a centralised administrative structure was adopted, as prescribed by the Piedmontese Constitution of 1848. Centralisation of political power reached its apogee during the Fascist period. Regionalist sentiment resurfaced strongly after the last war and gained formal expression in the 1948 Republican Constitution, which provided for the creation of five ‘special’ and fourteen (later fifteen) ‘ordinary’ regions. The special regions—regions of special linguistic or political sensitivity (Valle d'Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily and Sardinia)—were established between 1948 and 1963, but delays orchestrated by the Christian Democrat-dominated central government, reluctant to relinquish its power, postponed the establishment of the ordinary regions until the 1970s, when pressure from the Socialist Party prevailed. The legislative powers of the regions are of three forms: Exclusive (available only to the special regions), complementary, and integrative, the order representing progressively diminishing elements of decisionmaking autonomy. Several regions in central Italy have elected Communist regional governments. However, hopes that the regional governments would be instrumental in ending corrupt and inept government and eradicating regional disequilibria, have mostly been misplaced, although some progress has been made, especially in the northern regions, in the fields of administrative reform, social service organisation, and regional economic planning. The principal reason for lack of progress is the continuing central government control over regional government funds. In many regions considerable amounts of unspent funds have accumulated owing to a combination of political stalemate at the regional level and central government veto. Special attention is given in this paper to the relationship between regional autonomy and (1) local government, and (2) regional planning. To conclude, the present state of play represents an uneasy compromise between the two contradictory historical forces of centralism and regionalism, present since unification. Although there has been a significant departure from the rigid centralisation of the past, the retention of most of the important powers by the central government frustrates the ambitions of the regions to really organise their own affairs.

This author deals with processes of lawmaking, the dynamics of legislation in time, and the relationship between legislation and spatial development. The question is posed as to which way the legislation promotes, regulates, or prohibits the use of space (natural resources, given or new locations, transport routes, etc). Approaches to set societal norms in this realm became common in the development of Raumordnung (regional policy) as a public task, as it has been developed for example in the Federal Republic of Germany, in Switzerland, and in Austria. The author first introduces political theory from the perspective of General Systems Theory, and then discusses the dynamics of legislation in Austria 1958–1985. Two case studies are detailed: One of control of air pollution, and one of regional and local planning.

When the European Community (EC) created the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRD) in 1975, regional policy was established at an international level for the first time ever. Because of the chosen instruments and the ‘additive’ mechanism of implementation—via the administrative bodies of the member states—this policy seemed at first to mean little more than a reinforcement of regional policies at a national level. Since then, the EC has considerably intensified its regional policy and diversified its instruments. However, the recent reforms of the Community's regional policy serve not only to achieve (certain) development effects with respect to the economic structure of less-developed areas, but also as a means of reorganizing governmental (planning) bodies and regional development policies in the member states, that is, as a means of inducing modernization and differentiation of state intervention in the countries concerned.

Thus, the EC intervenes’ in the affairs of the member states: Not in the shape of more or less authoritarian intervention by a superior body—EC powers do not permit this—but via the indirect effect of market mechanism. Subsidies are the economic incentive to collaborate.