The review of article 145 CE in a federal reform of the Spanish Constitution

Abstract

Abstract: In the current context of serious crisis of the territorial pattern envisaged by the 1978 Spanish Constitution, many authors have advocated for a reform of the State of the Autonomies in federal terms, either for transforming it fully into a Federal State, or for correcting some of its most dysfunctional instruments towards a more federal orientation. One of them is certainly the cooperation between Autonomous Communities and, in particular, agreements on inter-autonomic cooperation. The scholars have pointed out that the cause of the low number of agreements between Autonomous Communities is the rigidity of their legal regime, contained in Article 145 of the Spanish Constitution and the corresponding Statutes of Autonomy. Consequently, it has been repeatedly and mostly proposed to amend the mentioned Article 145 in the sense of removing the control of the Cortes Generales over the establishment of these autonomic agreements, on the understanding that, moreover, this constitutional provision would receive a configuration closer to a real federal state. Notwithstanding, this paper attempts to justify that the legal regime of Article 145 of the Spanish Constitution is not the cause of the insufficient functioning of the horizontal cooperation in our system; that the scope of the powers of control of the Cortes on these agreements is very different to the described one by the authors; and, moreover, that the current wording of Article 145 is fully compatible with the review in federal terms of the rest of the territorial pattern. Thus, it is finally defended the unsuitability of the proposed constitutional reform.

Keywords

• reforma federal
• cooperación interterritorial
• convenios
• estado autonómico
• federal review
• cooperation
• interstate compacts
• state of autonomies.