Competing Meanings of the New Democratic State

This chapter looks into the clashing reformist programmes of the political parties Union of Democratic Centre and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, on the one hand, and the conservative Popular Alliance, on the other hand. Against these three parties, during the debates of the Constituent Assembly of 1977–1978 the Communist Party of Spain, together with Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, endorsed an almost complete decentralization of state competences. In the case of Union of Democratic Centre and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, institutional reforms sought to equate the country with other European democracies admitting a partial decentralization of state competences. In the case of the Spanish Communist Party, reforms to decentralize Spain were deemed insufficient to satisfy the demands of self-determination in terms of a higher degree of self-rule for regions. Nevertheless, regional nationalist parties aimed to enshrine in the Constitution the access to secession from Spain for Catalonia and the Basque Country.