It is 45 years since the approval of the 1978 Constitution by national referendum. A broad political consensus preceded broad approval of the constitutional text by citizens, 87.78% affirmative votes, which corresponded to 58.97% of the electoral roll. In Catalonia the acceptance percentage was even higher, 90.46%. We, practically all of us, believed that the consensus had even integrated the so-called peripheral nationalisms, something that today we have verified that was not exactly the case.
This has emerged in the years of the ‘procés’ and, singularly, in our days. The nationalist parties, despite having obtained the worst electoral result in memory, have obtained an unusual and totally disproportionate political boost from a party, the PSOE, that we had always placed in the constitutional arc. The inauguration of President Sánchez, who has opted for extreme alliances, both on the left and on the right, is turning this constitutional anniversary into a turning point that could lead to the collapse of the democratic system.
The Constitution was conceived as a Constitution of integration and political institutions are formed in it through consensus procedures. Except for the Congress and the Senate, large majorities are required for the election of the main bodies because that is what the constituents wanted, in the same way that a great consensus is also necessary for its own reform. We have only reformed it twice, both in relation to our integration into the European Union. But there have been other attempts because, for example, the territorial model was not closed; and it was not closed precisely because what the Constitution regulates is how to put it on its feet. And other regulations, which do not always require constitutional reform, also require an ‘aggiornamento’, to face current global challenges.
However, the inability of the two major parties to continue along the path of consensus and agreement has resulted in the fact that when any of them has not had an absolute majority, they have opted for an agreement with the peripheral nationalism that has derived in a kind of centrifugal federalism, in which powers have been transferred to autonomous communities that, far from responding to adequate responses to citizen needs, have been increasing the power shares of those who, finally, are choosing to the destruction of the constitutional system.
Far, then, from being able to celebrate what has been internationally considered a success, derived from a Transition to democracy based on social, political and economic integration (let us not forget the precedent of the Moncloa Pacts), we must regret that The current Government has persisted in passing a law to amnesty the Catalan coup plotters and to circumvent national sovereignty to transfer what corresponds to the nation as a whole to decide to clandestine meetings abroad supported by “international verifiers” as if we were in a war or narcoterrorism situation. All of this is accompanied by a crisis that puts judges in the spotlight and under the control of those who must be controlled by them, as is intrinsic to any rule of law.
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