Virgil
11-15-2008, 04:05 PM
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12501023
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SPAIN
How much is enough?
Nov 6th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Devolution has been good for Spain, but it may have gone too far
THE hardest problem for the authors of Spain’s democratic constitution was to strike a balance between the central government and the claims of Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia for home rule. The formula they came up with was known as café para todos, or coffee for all: Spain was divided into 17 “autonomous communities” (plus the enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast), each with its own elected parliament and government. This estado de las autonomías seemed a neat solution. Over the past 30 years more and more powers and money have been devolved. The regional governments are now responsible for schools, universities, health, social services, culture, urban and rural development and, in some places, policing. But it is becoming clear that even as it has solved some problems, decentralisation has created others.
The estado de las autonomías has several clear benefits. First, as Mr Zapatero says, “it spreads power and impedes its concentration,” and in that way reflects “the best liberal thinking”. Second, by bringing decisions about services closer to the people it has improved them. Third, it encourages competition between regions. The rivalry between Barcelona and Madrid may have acquired an edge of mistrust, but it is in essence a creative tension. And fourth, the system has reduced regional inequalities, or at least stopped them widening.
To get a sense of the success of decentralisation, head not to Catalonia or the Basque country but to the south. In the 1970s Andalucía seemed much closer to Africa than Europe—and not just geographically. Rural labourers lived in semi-servitude and one adult in five was illiterate. Now it has narrowed the gap with the rest of Spain in many ways. The south is still poorer than the north, but Spain no longer has anything like Italy’s mezzogiorno.
In other parts of the country Valencia and Zaragoza have become thrusting cities with an economic and cultural life of their own, and Bilbao’s metamorphosis from a centre of declining heavy industry into a cultural and tourist magnet, started off by its Guggenheim Museum, has become a textbook case of urban regeneration.
All this has come at a political price. First, it has led to a renaissance of an old Spanish political phenomenon, the cacique or provincial political boss, as Antonio Muñoz Molina, a leading novelist, points out. Mr Pujol ran Catalonia for 23 years; Manuel Fraga, a former minister under Franco who founded the forerunner of the PP, ran Galicia for 15 years; and Manuel Chaves, a Socialist who has headed Andalucía’s regional government since 1990, is said to reign rather than govern.
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===============
SPAIN
How much is enough?
Nov 6th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Devolution has been good for Spain, but it may have gone too far
THE hardest problem for the authors of Spain’s democratic constitution was to strike a balance between the central government and the claims of Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia for home rule. The formula they came up with was known as café para todos, or coffee for all: Spain was divided into 17 “autonomous communities” (plus the enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast), each with its own elected parliament and government. This estado de las autonomías seemed a neat solution. Over the past 30 years more and more powers and money have been devolved. The regional governments are now responsible for schools, universities, health, social services, culture, urban and rural development and, in some places, policing. But it is becoming clear that even as it has solved some problems, decentralisation has created others.
The estado de las autonomías has several clear benefits. First, as Mr Zapatero says, “it spreads power and impedes its concentration,” and in that way reflects “the best liberal thinking”. Second, by bringing decisions about services closer to the people it has improved them. Third, it encourages competition between regions. The rivalry between Barcelona and Madrid may have acquired an edge of mistrust, but it is in essence a creative tension. And fourth, the system has reduced regional inequalities, or at least stopped them widening.
To get a sense of the success of decentralisation, head not to Catalonia or the Basque country but to the south. In the 1970s Andalucía seemed much closer to Africa than Europe—and not just geographically. Rural labourers lived in semi-servitude and one adult in five was illiterate. Now it has narrowed the gap with the rest of Spain in many ways. The south is still poorer than the north, but Spain no longer has anything like Italy’s mezzogiorno.
In other parts of the country Valencia and Zaragoza have become thrusting cities with an economic and cultural life of their own, and Bilbao’s metamorphosis from a centre of declining heavy industry into a cultural and tourist magnet, started off by its Guggenheim Museum, has become a textbook case of urban regeneration.
All this has come at a political price. First, it has led to a renaissance of an old Spanish political phenomenon, the cacique or provincial political boss, as Antonio Muñoz Molina, a leading novelist, points out. Mr Pujol ran Catalonia for 23 years; Manuel Fraga, a former minister under Franco who founded the forerunner of the PP, ran Galicia for 15 years; and Manuel Chaves, a Socialist who has headed Andalucía’s regional government since 1990, is said to reign rather than govern.
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