The Constitutional Crossroads in Spain

Abstract

Since the Constitutional Court ruling (31/2010) – which included the declaration that interpretation of references to Catalonia in the 2006 Statute of Autonomy as ‘a nation’ and to its ‘national reality’ were devoid of legal effect – the Spanish central government has taken approaches to territorial power distribution which have had increasingly severe negative impacts on the autonomy of the Basque Country and Catalonia. Specifically, while the Basque and Catalan Autonomous Communities have begun to question why the current model cannot adapt to some of the more ambitious expectations of self-government, in the Spanish State the present model of devolution has been questioned precisely for the opposite reason: a perception that the model has gone too far. Facing such a complex panorama, this chapter examines the characteristics of the current Constitutional crossroads in Spain, proposing a new constitutional consensus based on the development of democracy and deepening of human rights.