A country kidnapped by the failed debate on the national question

Some historians have located the most immediate origin of some of Spain's territorial problems, although not the cause, in the Pact of San Sebastián (1930).. From that meeting, held in secrecy, some say that at the home of its promoter, Fernando Sasiain y Brau, and others at the Hotel de Londres, came the commitment of a broad group of right-wing and left-wing intellectuals and politicians proclaim the Republic in the face of the debacle of the monarchy after its determined support for Primo de Rivera.

That pact faced the so-called national question from the commitment to give “a legal solution to the Catalan problem”. However, nothing was said about how to deal with the territorial structure of the State, either from a federal or a unitary vision.. The result was dramatic because, on April 14, Francesc Macià unilaterally proclaimed the Catalan Republic within the Spanish Federal Republic.

It is evident that before the San Sebastián meeting, territorial problems already existed, and the First Republic definitively demonstrates this, but there is little doubt that the national question went through the Second Republic, to the point of significantly conditioning its outcome..

The 1978 Constitution addressed the territorial issue from the perspective of administrative and political decentralization, but incompletely. What was left was a denatured Senate, although it was formally declared a Chamber of Territorial Representation, absolutely useless to channel problems. Its only use has been, paradoxically, to seize powers from Catalonia in application of article 155 of the Constitution. The model that was improvised was the so-called autonomous State, which is a kind of imitation of classic federalism, and which has undoubtedly given notable results.. It is a reality that the autonomous State has coincided in time with the greatest social, economic and political progress in Spain in centuries.

The lack of specification in matters of competence of Title VIII, however, has led to a multitude of lawsuits before the Constitutional Court, and what is more politically relevant, the idea has spread that the model, far from being closed, is subject to the correlation of forces between the central Administration, ultimately the tenant of Moncloa, and some regional governments, particularly the Basque Country and Catalonia.

The strategy of victimhood

Not only that. Nationalist pressure, in order to compete politically, has generated a scenario of grievances in which some regional barons, whether they are socialists or conservatives, frequently use territorial tensions to win votes to the extent that they add fuel to the fire or play card. Victimism has borne fruit in territories such as Madrid, although also in Catalonia in the opposite direction. Moreover, the increase in political instability in recent years, at least since the CiU dropped the González government in 1993 by not supporting its State Budget, has to do with territorial issues.. Even, sometimes, above corruption or the economic situation.

It is not a subjective feeling resulting from sectarian analysis. In May of this year, the CIS published a study on the cultural and European identities of the Spaniards in which questions were asked about the different models of territorial organization. 13% responded that their preference was a centralized system without the existence of autonomous communities. Along the same lines, another 19.8% declared themselves in favor of a State in which the autonomous communities have less autonomy than at present. In total, 32.8%. In other words, one in three Spaniards is suspicious of the current model.

How many like the current system? to something less. Specifically, 31.6%. It is, without a doubt, a very important comparison that can explain, in part, why three million Spaniards vote for Vox, which is the only party that proposes a return to the unitary state of Francoism. last two data. When those surveyed were asked about how the organization of the State has functioned in recent years, 69.4% thought that regular, bad or very bad, while only 29.2% considered that it was good or very good (the rest or do not know or do not answer).

The CIS survey is completed with two other responses.

All the surveys, obviously, are susceptible to being questioned, and it is not necessary to refer to the most recent examples, but what the CIS reflects is that the autonomous system, as it is designed, is far from being a problem resolved.

The autonomous carajal

On the contrary, it was at the center of Rajoy's two legislatures —the procés— and it has been in the first of Sánchez to the extent that he had to rely on the independentistas to govern, which has created a favorable breeding ground to those who want to scrap the autonomous state. What's more, neither Rajoy nor Sánchez have dared to update the regional financing model despite having expired for ten years for fear of opening Pandora's box, which gives an idea of the mortgage that has been embraced by politics Spanish on account of the autonomous carajal, as Mario Onaindía called it a few years ago.

In the legislature that has started after 23-J, now in the hands of the independentistas of Junts, the territorial question, in fact, will once again be at the center of the political debate. And the ERC must be included in the equation, whose electoral collapse may condition the stability of the Sánchez government, if there is one. Or even the Canary Islands Coalition.

It is not necessary to do a master's degree in territorial politics to understand that Spain has a problem with its state model to the extent that it contaminates the functioning of the political system in a very relevant way, unless you want to keep closing your eyes so as not to see what we are dealing with. an increasingly fragmented party system for territorial reasons. The PSOE depends on the PSC, when not too long ago some leaders who today rebel against Sánchez wanted to expel the Catalan socialists from Ferraz's orbit, and Sumar is a swarm pregnant with regionalist and not so regionalist acronyms. The PP lives politically from its aversion to independence – sanchismo defines itself as a permanent concession to independence – and Vox has built its political ideology around the most rancid exclusive and intolerant nationalism, even proposing the outlawing of secessionist parties.

In no other country in Europe does something similar happen, not even in the United Kingdom, where there is a powerful independence party in Scotland. Neither in France, nor in Germany, nor today in Italy, territorial problems condition everything. On the contrary, it is the ideological wickerwork —the presence of the State in economic activity, social policies or the fiscal question— the issues that decide the vote, but never the policy of territorial alliances. Precisely, the ballast that the PP has today to form a government together with its pacts with Vox, which have taken their toll and isolated it politically, which forces it to win by an absolute majority.

It is evident that the current situation reflects a plural Spain that has no turning back. The autonomous State is what it is and what it is about now is to redirect it —with an inclusive will— to avoid the unhealthy temptation of throwing the dirty water out of the basin with the child inside, which is what has usually been done in the hazardous life of Spain during the last two centuries. Or expressed in another way, doing the opposite of ignoring that the elephant is at the center of political life.

What happened in the legislature that began in 2019 and now in 2023 is a good example that territorial policy conditions everything, even in matters as relevant to citizens as housing policy, which in the end will depend on the interpretation made the Constitutional one, which leaves politics in a very bad place, which will continue to be entangled for many years if good sense is not imposed and an old problem that ruined two republics and threatens to vitiate Spanish politics is not addressed.. It is a bad thing to continue discussing the national question in the 21st century.