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6 Law & Admin. Post-Soviet Eur. 4 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/lape6 and id is 1 raw text is: sciendo LAW AND ADMINISTRATION IN POST-SOVIET EUROPE Vot. I(Vl)/2019: 4-11 DOI: 10.2478/lape-2019-0001 Michal Zbigniew Dankowski Kolegium Jagiellonskie - Torunska Szkola Wyisza, Torun THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE REFORM OF THE CONSTITUTION OF SPAIN IN VIEW OF THE INSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES Key words: Spain, constitution, autonomous communities, Catalonia, nationalism Abstract Spain according to the Constitution of 1978 is a unitary state, but its whole territory is divided into autonomous communities that have the widest rights from equivalent territorial units in other European countries. The Constitution restored the possi- bility of creating regional autonomies, which were abolished earlier during the Franco dictatorship. However, the basic law was adopted before the foundations of regional structures were fully developed, so norms concerning the issues of autonomy were dictated in a general way. Only later legal acts regulated the situation in detail, but often their content depended on the politi- cal situation and was not always homogeneous. The creators of the Constitution did not foresee the subsequent forming of autonomous communities in the entire state territory. For over four decades of validity of the Spanish constitution, differences in the way the individual autonomous communities were established and differences in the competences of different regions have emerged. Some autonomous governments have also begun to expand their rights at the expense of the central authorities. The above factors caused a lively discussion among lawyers and politicians over the necessity of constitutional reform in the scope of the territorial system of Spain. The system of autonomous communities VIII. Specified conditions and ways of organization of in Spain autonomous regions are regulated in their organic stat- utes, constituting the most important legal acts adopted By virtue of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Spain by regional authorities. of 27 December 1978, the right to autonomy of na- The right to the autonomy of nationalities and re- tionalities and regions was guaranteed, equated with gions, indissoluble united as the Spanish Nation in the Castilian local languages and the right to own flags and common and indivisible state of all Spaniards, has been emblems used simultaneously with state-wide ones. The recognized and guaranteed1. Although the Castilian constitution specifies in detail the possibilities of form- ' Constitucion Espanola de 27 de diciembre de 1978 (fur- ing regional communities in the third chapter of Title