The 1978 Spanish Constitution came into force on December 29 after the majority of voters voted yes to the question “Do you approve the draft Constitution?” on the 6th. The Magna Carta put an end to 36 years of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship and was the result of the political transition that the main parties began after the death of the dictator in 1975. During this period, the objective was for Spain to stop being a dictatorship to become a parliamentary monarchy like the European ones. To achieve this, the most important steps were the Political Reform Law of 1976, which accepted political pluralism and provided for free elections, and the drafting of the Constitution.
The constitutional text of 1978 was thus the first in the history of Spain that was born from the consensus of all the political forces of the moment, since the previous six had been conservative or progressive depending on the Government that approved them. The current Magna Carta is also the second longest after that of 1876, which lasted 47 years, and is one of the longest in Europe, with 169 articles. In its Preliminary Title it declares that Spain is a social and democratic State that takes the form of a parliamentary monarchy and that its sovereignty resides in the Spanish people.
A year of negotiations
The commission in charge of drafting the Constitution met for the first time in August 1977. It was made up of seven representatives of the main political parties of the time: three from the Democratic Center Union (UCD), two from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), one from Alianza Popular (AP) and one from the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). Catalans and Basques were excluded for demanding greater autonomy for their territories, although the PSOE gave up one of its seats to the Catalan Pacte Democràtic coalition.
Although the text would reflect the political consensus of the Transition, there was no shortage of disagreements. In fact, at first there were discrepancies and the second draft of the text that was presented to the Congress of Deputies in December received more than 3,000 amendments. The representatives did not agree on the form of State, its (non-denominational) nature and the territorial model. Especially thorny was the mention of “nationalities” in article 2, which includes the right to autonomy of Spanish nationalities and regions, since AP wanted only to speak of “nation” to nullify the claims of the Basque and Catalan nationalists. .
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The differences reached such a point that they blocked the constituent process, so the UCD and PSOE initiated a different strategy: the “tablecloth pacts.” The seven representatives agreed to agreements such as the abolition of the death penalty or the form of the State throughout 1978 after long meals in various Madrid restaurants where they discussed the articles of the Constitution. This more informal and relaxed practice bore fruit, since on June 20, 1978, the commission presented the final draft of the Magna Carta, approved by its seven members. Finally, the Cortes approved the text in October and the population did the same in the referendum on December 6 with almost 88% of the votes of the 59% of the electoral roll.
Two reforms to an established Constitution
Although the Spanish Constitution of 1978 is almost half a century old, it has only been reformed twice, and to comply with European Union regulations. Article 13 was first modified in 1992 so that foreigners could present themselves as candidates in municipal elections. Nineteen years later, the then president Mariano Rajoy, of the Popular Party, and the opposition leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of the PSOE, agreed to modify article 135 to comply with the maximum structural deficit ceiling approved by the Union.
The majority of Spaniards, however, want more reforms. A study by the Sociological Research Center revealed in 2018 that 70% of citizens are in favor of a major reform of the Constitution, which would include a review of the territorial model and the political form of the State. This desire for change has increased especially as a result of the rise of the Catalan independence movement, which has revealed the problems of the Spanish territorial model.
However, a claim of that magnitude would not be easy, since the very mechanisms to modify the Constitution in that case require majorities that are difficult to provide for the recent political board. First, two-thirds of the Congress and the Senate would have to approve the reform proposal, which would be followed by a dissolution of the Chambers and the holding of elections. Afterwards, two-thirds of the new Chambers would have to accept the reform and it would then be submitted to a referendum for ratification.