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Spain HISTORY GEOGRAPHY PEOPLE & SOCIETY ECONOMY GOVERNMENT NATIONAL SECURITY REFERENCE Spain - Acknowledgments and Preface Spain The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals who wrote the 1976 edition of Spain: A Country Study: David P. Coffin, Eugene K. Keefe, James M. Moore, Jr., Robert Rinehart, and Susan H. Scurlock. Their work provided some portions of the text. The authors are grateful to individuals in various agencies of the United States government and in international and private institutions who gave of their time, research materials, and special knowledge, providing both information and perspective. Officials at the World Bank and the United States Department of State were especially helpful in providing economic data. Similarly, officials of the United States Department of Defense supplied up-to-date information about Spain's defense forces. The staff of the Embassy of Spain in Washington also provided valuable assistance and material. Patrick Buckley made insightful comments on drafts of some of the text. The authors also wish to thank those who contributed directly to the preparation of the manuscript. These include Richard F. Nyrop, who reviewed all drafts and served as liaison with the sponsoring agency; Richard Kollodge, Noel Beatty, Evan Raynes, and Gage Ricard, who edited the chapters; Martha E. Hopkins, who managed editing and book production; and Barbara Edgerton, Janie L. Gilchrist, and Izella Watson, who did the word processing. Carolyn Hinton performed the final prepublication editorial review, and Shirley Kessel, of Communicators Connections, compiled the index. Diann J. JOhnson and Malinda B. Neale of the Library of Congress Printing and Processing Sections performed phototypesetting, under the supervision of Peggy Pixley. David P. Cabitto, who was assisted by Sandra K. Cotugno and Kimberly A. Lord, provided invaluable graphics support. Susan M. Lender reviewed the map drafts, which were prepared by Kimberly A. Lord and Greenhorne and O'Mara. Kimberly A. Lord also deserves special thanks for designing the illustrations for the book's cover and the title page of each chapter. Many photographs were graciously supplied by the National Tourist Office of Spain in New York and the Embassy of Spain in Washington. The authors also would like to thank several individuals who provided research support. Arvies J. Staton supplied information on ranks and insignia, and Karen M. Sturges-Vera authored the section on geography in chapter 2. Preface Like its predecessor, this study is an attempt to treat in a compact and objective manner the dominant historical, social, economic, political, and military aspects of contemporary Spain. Sources of information included scholarly books, journals, and monographs, official reports of governments and international organizations, numerous periodicals, and interviews with individuals having special competence in Spanish affairs. Measurements are given in the metric system. The Bibliography lists published sources thought to be particularly helpful to the reader. Although there are numerous variations, Spanish surnames generally consist of two parts: the patrilineal name followed by the matrilineal. In the instance of Felipe Gonzalez Marquez, for example, Gonzalez is his father's surname, and Marquez, his mother's maiden name. In non-formal use, the matrilineal name is often dropped. Thus, after the first mention, we have usually referred simply to Gonzalez. A minority of individuals use only the patrilineal name. Spain Spain - History Spain THE NATIONAL HISTORY of Spain dates back to the fifth century A.D., when the Visigoths established a Germanic successor state in the former Roman diocese of Hispania. Despite a period of internal political disunity during the Middle Ages, Spain nevertheless is one of the oldest nation-states in Europe. In the late fifteenth century, Spain acquired its current borders and was united under a personal union of crowns by Ferdinand of Aragon (Spanish, Aragon) and Isabella of Castile (Spanish, Castilla). For a period in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, Portugal was part of that Iberian federation. In the sixteenth century, Spain was the foremost European power, and it was deeply involved in European affairs from that period to the eighteenth century. Spain's kings ruled provinces scattered across Europe. The Spanish Empire was global, and the influence of Spanish culture was so pervasive, especially in the Americas, that Spanish is still the native tongue of more than 200 million people outside Spain. Recurrent political instability, military intervention in politics, frequent breakdowns of civil order, and periods of repressive government have characterized modern Spanish history. In the nineteenth century, Spain had a constitutional framework for parliamentary government, not unlike those of Britain and France, but it was unable to develop institutions capable of surviving the social, economic, and ideological stresses of Spanish society. The Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which claimed more than 500,000 lives, recapitulated on a larger scale and more brutally conflicts that had erupted periodically for generations. These conflicts, which centered around social and political roles of the Roman Catholic Church, class differences, and struggles for regional autonomy on the part of Basque and Catalan nationalists, were repressed but were not eliminated under the authoritarian rule of Nationalist leader Generalissimo Francisco Franco y Bahamonde (in power, 1939-75). In the closing years of the Franco regime, these conflicts flared, however, as militant demands for reform increased and mounting terrorist violence threatened the country's stability. When Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon became king of Spain following Franco's death in November 1975, there was little indication that he would be the instrument for the democratization of Spain. Nevertheless, within three years he and his prime minister, Aldolfo Suarez Gonzalez (in office 1976-81), had accomplished the historically unprecedented feat of transforming a dictatorial regime into a pluralistic, parliamentary democracy through nonviolent means. This accomplishment made it possible to begin the process of healing Spain's historical schisms. The success of this peaceful transition to democracy can be attributed to the young king's commitment to democratic institutions and to his prime minister's ability to maneuver within the existing political establishment in order to bring about the necessary reforms. The failure of a coup attempt in February 1981 and the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in October 1982 revealed the extent to which democratic principles had taken root in Spanish society. West European governments refused to cooperate with an authoritarian regime in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and, in effect, they ostracized the country from the region's political, economic, and defense organizations. With the onset of the Cold War, however, Spain's strategic importance for the defense of Western Europe outweighed other political considerations, and isolation of the Franco regime came to an end. Bilateral agreements, first negotiated in 1953, permitted the United States to maintain a chain of air and naval bases in Spain in support of the overall defense of Western Europe. Spain became a member of the United Nations in 1955 and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1982. HISTORY CONTENTS <"3.htm">IBERIA <"4.htm">HISPANIA <"5.htm">AL ANDALUS <"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON <"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE Ferdinand and Isabella <"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II <"9.htm">Spain in Decline <"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN <"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession <"12.htm">The Enlightenment <"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era <"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY The Cadiz Cortes <"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento <"16.htm">Liberal Rule <"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY <"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster <"19.htm">The African War <"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN <"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR <"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS Franco's Political System <"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest <"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco <"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA Transition to Democracy <"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership <"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE <"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period Spain Spain - IBERIA Spain The people who were later named Iberians (or dwellers along the Rio Ebro) by the Greeks, migrated to Spain in the third millennium B.C. The origin of the Iberians is not certain, but archaeological evidence of their metallurgical and agricultural skills supports a theory that they came from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Iberians lived in small, tightly knit, sedentary tribal groups that were geographically isolated from one another. Each group developed distinct regional and political identities, and intertribal warfare was endemic. Other peoples of Mediterranean origin also settled in the peninsula during the same period and, together with the Iberians, mixed with the diverse inhabitants. Celts crossed the Pyrenees into Spain in two major migrations in the ninth and the seventh centuries B.C. The Celts settled for the most part north of the Rio Duero and the Rio Ebro, where they mixed with the Iberians to form groups called Celtiberians. The Celtiberians were farmers and herders who also excelled in metalworking crafts, which the Celts had brought from their Danubian homeland by way of Italy and southern France. Celtic influence dominated Celtiberian culture. The Celtiberians appear to have had no social or political organization larger than their matriarchal, collective, and independent clans. Another distinct ethnic group in the western Pyrenees, the Basques, predate the arrival of the Iberians. Their pre-Indo- European language has no links with any other language, and attempts to identify it with pre-Latin Iberian have not been convincing. The Romans called them Vascones, from which Basque is derived. The Iberians shared in the Bronze Age revival (1900 to 1600 B.C.) common throughout the Mediterranean basin. In the east and the south of the Iberian Peninsula, a system of city-states was established, possibly through the amalgamation of tribal units into urban settlements. Their governments followed the older tribal pattern, and they were despotically governed by warrior and priestly castes. A sophisticated urban society emerged with an economy based on gold and silver exports and on trade in tin and copper (which were plentiful in Spain) for bronze. Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians competed with the Iberians for control of Spain's coastline and the resources of the interior. Merchants from Tyre may have established an outpost at Cadiz, "the walled enclosure," as early as 1100 B.C. as the westernmost link in what became a chain of settlements lining the peninsula's southern coast. If the accepted date of its founding is accurate, Cadiz is the oldest city in Western Europe, and it is even older than Carthage in North Africa. It was the most significant of the Phoenician colonies. From Cadiz, Phoenician seamen explored the west coast of Africa as far as Senegal, and they reputedly ventured far out on the Atlantic. Greek pioneers from the island of Rhodes landed in Spain in the eighth century B.C. The Greek colony at Massilia (later Marseilles) maintained commercial ties with the Celtiberians in what is now Catalonia (Spanish, Cataluna; Catalan, Catalunya). In the sixth century B.C., Massilians founded a polis at Ampurias, the first of several established on the Mediterranean coast of the peninsula. HISTORY CONTENTS <"3.htm">IBERIA <"4.htm">HISPANIA <"5.htm">AL ANDALUS <"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON <"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE Ferdinand and Isabella <"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II <"9.htm">Spain in Decline <"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN <"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession <"12.htm">The Enlightenment <"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era <"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY The Cadiz Cortes <"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento <"16.htm">Liberal Rule <"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY <"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster <"19.htm">The African War <"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN <"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR <"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS Franco's Political System <"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest <"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco <"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA Transition to Democracy <"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership <"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE <"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period Spain Spain - HISPANIA Spain After its defeat by the Romans in the First Punic War (264-41 B.C.), Carthage compensated for its loss of Sicily by rebuilding a commercial empire in Spain. The country became the staging ground for Hannibal's epic invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.). Roman armies also invaded Spain and used it as a training ground for officers and as a proving ground for tactics during campaigns against the Carthaginians and the Iberians. Iberian resistance was fierce and prolonged, however, and it was not until 19 B.C. that the Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C.-A.D. 14) was able to complete the conquest of Spain. Romanization of the Iberians proceeded quickly after their conquest. Called Hispania by the Romans, Spain was not one political entity but was divided into three separately governed provinces (nine provinces by the fourth century A.D.). More important, Spain was for more than 400 years part of a cosmopolitan world empire bound together by law, language, and the Roman road. Iberian tribal leaders and urban oligarchs were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class, and they participated in governing Spain and the empire. The latifundios (sing., latifundio), large estates controlled by the aristocracy, were superimposed on the existing Iberian landholding system. The Romans improved existing cities, established Zaragoza, Merida, and Valencia, and provided amenities throughout the empire. Spain's economy expanded under Roman tutelage. Spain, along with North Africa, served as a granary for the Roman market, and its harbors exported gold, wool, olive oil, and wine. Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation projects, some of which remain in use. The HispanoRomans --the romanized Iberians and the Iberian-born descendants of Roman soldiers and colonists--had all achieved the status of full Roman citizenship by the end of the first century A.D. The emperors Trajan (r. 98-117), Hadrian (r. 117-38), and Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-80) were born in Spain. Christianity was introduced into Spain in the first century, and it became popular in the cities in the second century. Little headway was made in the countryside, however, until the late fourth century, by which time Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire. Some heretical sects emerged in Spain, but the Spanish church remained subordinate to the Bishop of Rome. Bishops who had official civil, as well as ecclesiastical, status in the late empire continued to exercise their authority to maintain order when civil governments broke down in Spain in the fifth century. The Council of Bishops became an important instrument of stability during the ascendancy of the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe. In 405 two Germanic tribes, the Vandals and the Suevi, crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul until the Visigoths, drove them into Spain. The Suevi established a kingdom in the remote northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula. The hardier Vandals, never exceeding 80,000, occupied the region that bears their name--Andalusia (Spanish, Andalucia). Because large parts of Spain were outside his control, the western Roman emperor, Honorius (r. 395-423), commissioned his sister, Galla Placidia, and her husband Ataulf, the Visigoth king, to restore order in the Iberian Peninsula, and he gave them the rights to settle in and to govern the area in return for defending it. The highly romanized Visigoths managed to subdue the Suevi and to compel the Vandals to sail for North Africa. In 484 they established <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Toledo.htm"> Toledo as the capital of their Spanish monarchy. The Visigothic occupation was in no sense a barbarian invasion, however. Successive Visigothic kings ruled Spain as patricians who held imperial commissions to govern in the name of the Roman emperor. There were no more than 300,000 Germanic people in Spain, which had a population of 4 million, and their overall influence on Spanish history is generally seen as minimal. They were a privileged warrior elite, though many of them lived as herders and farmers in the valley of the Rio Tajo and on the central plateau. Hispano-Romans continued to run the civil administration, and Latin continued to be the language of government and of commerce. Under the Visigoths, lay culture was not so highly developed as it had been under the Romans, and the task of maintaining formal education and government shifted decisively to the church because its Hispano-Roman clergy alone were qualified to manage higher administration. As elsewhere in early medieval Europe, the church in Spain stood as society's most cohesive institution, and it embodied the continuity of Roman order. Religion was the most persistent source of friction between the Roman Catholic Hispano-Romans and their Arian Visigoth overlords, whom they considered heretical. At times this tension invited open rebellion, and restive factions within the Visigothic aristocracy exploited it to weaken the monarchy. In 589 Recared, a Visigoth ruler, renounced his Arianism before the Council of Bishops at Toledo and accepted Catholicism, thus assuring an alliance between the Visigothic monarchy and the Hispano-Romans. This alliance would not mark the last time in Spanish history that political unity would be sought through religious unity. Court ceremonials--from Constantinople--that proclaimed the imperial sovereignty and unity of the Visigothic state were introduced at Toledo. Still, civil war, royal assassinations, and usurpation were commonplace, and warlords and great landholders assumed wide discretionary powers. Bloody family feuds went unchecked. The Visigoths had acquired and cultivated the apparatus of the Roman state, but not the ability to make it operate to their advantage. In the absence of a well-defined hereditary system of succession to the throne, rival factions encouraged foreign intervention by the Greeks, the Franks, and, finally, the Muslims in internal disputes and in royal elections. HISTORY CONTENTS <"3.htm">IBERIA <"4.htm">HISPANIA <"5.htm">AL ANDALUS <"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON <"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE Ferdinand and Isabella <"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II <"9.htm">Spain in Decline <"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN <"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession <"12.htm">The Enlightenment <"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era <"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY The Cadiz Cortes <"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento <"16.htm">Liberal Rule <"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY <"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster <"19.htm">The African War <"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN <"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR <"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS Franco's Political System <"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest <"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco <"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA Transition to Democracy <"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership <"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE <"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period Spain Spain - AL ANDALUS Spain Early in the eighth century, armies from North Africa began probing the Visigothic defenses of Spain and ultimately they initiated the Moorish epoch that would last for centuries. The people who became known to West Europeans as Moors were the Arabs, who had swept across North Africa from their Middle Eastern homeland, and the Berbers, inhabitants of Morocco who had been conquered by the Arabs and converted to Islam. In 711 Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber governor of Tangier, crossed into Spain with an army of 12,000 (landing at a promontory that was later named, in his honor, Jabal Tariq, or Mount Tariq, from which the name, Gibraltar, is derived). They came at the invitation of a Visigothic clan to assist it in rising against King Roderic. Roderic died in battle, and Spain was left without a leader. Tariq returned to Morocco, but the next year (712) Musa ibn Nusair, the Muslim governor in North Africa, led the best of his Arab troops to Spain with the intention of staying. In three years he had subdued all but the mountainous region in the extreme north and had initiated forays into France, which were stemmed at Poitiers in 732. Al Andalus, as Islamic Spain was called, was organized under the civil and religious leadership of the caliph of Damascus. Governors in Spain were generally Syrians, whose political frame of reference was deeply influenced by Byzantine practices. Nevertheless, the largest contingent of Moors in Spain consisted of the North African Berbers, recent converts to Islam, who were hostile to the sophisticated Arab governors and bureaucrats and were given to a religious enthusiasm and fundamentalism that were to set the standard for the Islamic community in Spain. Berber settlers fanned out through the country and made up as much as 20 percent of the population of the occupied territory. The Arabs constituted an aristocracy in the revived cities and on the latifundios that they had inherited from the Romans and the Visigoths. Most members of the Visigothic nobility converted to Islam, and they retained their privileged position in the new society. The countryside, only nominally Christian, was also successfully Islamized. Nevertheless, an Hispano-Roman Christian community survived in the cities. Moreover, Jews, who constituted more than 5 percent of the population, continued to play an important role in commerce, scholarship, and the professions. The Arab-dominated Umayyad dynasty at Damascus was overthrown in 756 by the Abbasids, who moved the caliphate to Baghdad. One Umayyad prince fled to Spain and, under the name of Abd al Rahman (r. 756-88), founded a politically independent amirate (the Caliphate of Cordoba), which was then the farthest extremity of the Islamic world. His dynasty flourished for 250 years. Nothing in Europe compared with the wealth, the power, and the sheer brilliance of Al Andalus during this period. In 929 Abd al Rahman III (r. 912-61), who was half European-- as were many of the ruling caste, elevated the amirate to the status of a caliphate. This action cut Spain's last ties with Baghdad and established that thereafter Al Andalus's rulers would enjoy complete religious and political sovereignty. When Hisham II, grandson of Abd al Rahman, inherited the throne in 976 at age twelve, the royal vizier, Ibn Abi Amir (known as Al Mansur), became regent (981-1002) and established himself as virtual dictator. For the next twenty-six years, the caliph was no more than a figurehead, and Al Mansur was the actual ruler. Al Mansur wanted the caliphate to symbolize the ideal of religious and political unity as insurance against any renewal of civil strife. Notwithstanding his employment of Christian mercenaries, Al Mansur preached jihad, or holy war, against the Christian states on the frontier, undertaking annual summer campaigns against them, which served not only to unite Spanish Muslims in a common cause but also to extend temporary Muslim control in the north. The caliphate of Cordoba did not long survive Al Mansur's dictatorship. Rival claimants to the throne, local aristocrats, and army commanders who staked out taifas (sing., taifa), or independent regional city-states, tore the caliphate apart. Some taifas, such as <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Seville.htm"> Seville (Spanish, Sevilla), Granada, Valencia, and Zaragoza, became strong amirates, but all faced frequent political upheavals, war among themselves, and long-term accommodations to emerging Christian states. Peaceful relations among Arabs, Berbers, and Spanish converts to Islam were not easily maintained. To hold together such a heterogeneous population, Spanish Islam stressed ethics and legalism. Pressure from the puritanical Berbers also led to crackdowns on Mozarabs (name for Christians in Al Andalus: literally, Arab-like) and Jews. Mozarabs were considered a separate caste even though there were no real differences between them and the converts to Islam except for religion and liability to taxation, which fell heavily on the Christian community. They were essentially urban merchants and artisans. Their church was permitted to exist with few restrictions, but it was prohibited from flourishing. The episcopal and monastic structure remained intact, but teaching was curbed and intellectual initiative was lost. In the ninth century, Mozarabs in Cordoba, led by their bishop, invited martyrdom by publicly denouncing the Prophet Muhammad in public. Nevertheless, violence against the Mozarabs was rare until the eleventh century, when the Christian states became a serious threat to the security of Al Andalus. Many Mozarabs fled to the Christian north. HISTORY CONTENTS <"3.htm">IBERIA <"4.htm">HISPANIA <"5.htm">AL ANDALUS <"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON <"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE Ferdinand and Isabella <"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II <"9.htm">Spain in Decline <"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN <"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession <"12.htm">The Enlightenment <"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era <"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY The Cadiz Cortes <"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento <"16.htm">Liberal Rule <"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY <"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster <"19.htm">The African War <"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN <"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR <"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS Franco's Political System <"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest <"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco <"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA Transition to Democracy <"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership <"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE <"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period Spain Spain - CASTILE AND ARAGON Spain Resistance to the Muslim invasion in the eighth century had been limited to small groups of Visigoth warriors who took refuge in the mountains of Asturias in the old Suevian kingdom, the least romanized and least Christianized region in Spain. According to tradition, Pelayo (718-37), a king of Oviedo, first rallied the natives to defend themselves, then urged them to take the offensive, beginning the 700-year Reconquest (Spanish, Reconquista), which became the dominant theme in medieval Spanish history. What began as a matter of survival in Asturias became a crusade to rid Spain of the Muslims and an imperial mission to reconstruct a united monarchy in Spain. Pelayo's successors, known as the kings of Leon, extended Christian control southward from Asturias, tore away bits of territory, depopulated and fortified them against the Muslims, and then resettled these areas as the frontier was pushed forward. The kingdom's political center moved in the direction of the military frontier. In the tenth century, strongholds were built as a buffer for the kingdom of Leon along the upper Rio Ebro, in the area that became known as Castile, the "land of castles." The region was populated by men--border warriors and free peasants--who were willing to defend it, and were granted fueros (special privileges and immunities) by the kings of Leon that made them virtually autonomous. Castile developed a distinct society with its own dialect, values, and customs shaped by the hard conditions of the frontier. Castile also produced a caste of hereditary warriors whom the frontier "democratized"; all warriors were equals, and all men were warriors. In 981 Castile became an independent county, and in 1004 it was raised to the dignity of a kingdom. Castile and Leon were reunited periodically through royal marriages, but their kings had no better plan than to divide their lands again among their heirs. The two kingdoms were, however, permanently joined as a single state in 1230 by Ferdinand III of Castile (d. 1252). Under the tutelage of the neighboring Franks, a barrier of pocket states formed along the range of the Pyrenees and on the coast of Catalonia to hold the frontier of France against Islamic Spain. Out of this region, called the Spanish March, emerged the kingdom of Aragon and the counties of Catalonia, all of which expanded, as did Leon-Castile, at the expense of the Muslims. (Andorra is the last independent survivor of the March states.) The most significant of the counties in Catalonia was that held by the counts of <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Barcelona.htm">Barcelona. They were descendants of Wilfrid the Hairy (874-98), who at the end of the ninth century declared his fief free of the French crown, monopolized lay and ecclesiastical offices on both sides of the Pyrenees, and divided them--according to Frankish custom--among members of the family. By 1100 Barcelona had dominion over all of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands (Spanish, Islas Baleares). Aragon and the Catalan counties were federated in 1137 through the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona, and Petronilla, heiress to the Aragonese throne. Berenguer assumed the title of king of Aragon, but he continued to rule as count in Catalonia. Berenguer and his successors thus ruled over two realms, each with its own government, legal code, currency, and political orientation. Valencia, seized from its Muslim amir, became federated with Aragon and Catalonia in 1238. With the union of the three crowns, Aragon (the term most commonly used to describe the federation) rivaled Venice and Genoa for control of Mediterranean trade. Aragonese commercial interests extended to the Black Sea, and the ports of Barcelona and Valencia prospered from traffic in textiles, drugs, spices, and slaves. Weakened by their disunity, the eleventh-century taifas fell piecemeal to the Castilians, who had reason to anticipate the completion of the Reconquest. When Toledo was lost in 1085, the alarmed amirs appealed for aid to the Almoravids, a militant Berber party of strict Muslims, who in a few years had won control of the Maghreb (northwest Africa). The Almoravids incorporated all of Al Andalus, except Zaragoza, into their North African empire. They attempted to stimulate a religious revival based on their own evangelical brand of Islam. In Spain, however, their movement soon lost its missionary fervor. The Almoravid state fell apart by the mid-twelfth century under pressure from another religious group, the Almohads, who extended their control from Morocco to Spain and made Seville their capital. The Almohads shared the crusading instincts of the Almoravids and posed an even greater military threat to the Christian states, but their expansion was stopped decisively in the epic battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), a watershed in the history of the Reconquest. Muslim strength ebbed thereafter. Ferdinand III took Seville in 1248, reducing Al Andalus to the amirate of Granada, which had bought its safety by betraying the Almohads' Spanish capital. Granada remained a Muslim state, but as a dependency of Castile. Aragon fulfilled its territorial aims in the thirteenth century when it annexed Valencia. The Catalans, however, looked for further expansion abroad, and their economic views prevailed over those of the parochial Aragonese nobility, who were not enthusiastic about foreign entanglements. Peter III, king of Aragon from 1276 until 1285, had been elected to the throne of Sicily when the French Angevins (House of Anjou) were expelled from the island kingdom during an uprising in 1282. Sicily, and later Naples, became part of the federation of Spanish crowns, and Aragon became embroiled in Italian politics, which continued to affect Spain into the eighteenth century. Castile, which had traditionally turned away from intervention in European affairs, developed a merchant marine in the Atlantic that successfully challenged the Hanseatic League (a peaceful league of merchants of various free German cities) for dominance in the coastal trade with France, England, and the Netherlands. The economic climate necessary for sustained economic development was notably lacking, however, in Castile. The reasons for this situation appear to have been rooted both in the structure of the economy and in the attitude of the Castilians. Restrictive corporations closely regulated all aspects of the economy--production, trade, and even transport. The most powerful of these corporations, the mesta, controlled the production of wool, Castile's chief export. Perhaps a greater obstacle for economic development was that commercial activity enjoyed little social esteem. Noblemen saw business as beneath their station and derived their incomes and prestige from landownership. Successful bourgeois entrepreneurs, who aspired to the petty nobility, invested in land rather than in other sectors of the economy because of the social status attached to owning land. This attitude deprived the economy of needed investments and engendered stagnation rather than growth. Feudalism, which bound nobles to the king-counts both economically and socially, as tenants to landlords, had been introduced into Aragon and Catalonia from France. It produced a more clearly stratified social structure than that found in Castile, and consequently it generated greater tension among classes. Castilian society was less competitive, more cohesive, and more egalitarian. Castile attempted to compensate through political means, however, for the binding feudal arrangements between crown and nobility that it lacked. The guiding theory behind the Castilian monarchy was that political centralism could be won at the expense of local fueros, but the kings of Castile never succeeded in creating a unitary state. Aragon- Catalonia accepted and developed--not without conflict--the federal principle, and it made no concerted attempt to establish a political union of the Spanish and Italian principalities outside of their personal union under the Aragonese crown. The principal regions of Spain were divided not only by conflicting local loyalties, but also by their political, economic, and social orientations. Catalonia particularly stood apart from the rest of the country. Both Castile and Aragon suffered from political instability in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The House of Trastamara acquired the Castilian throne in 1369 and created a new aristocracy to which it granted significant authority. Court favorites, or validos (sing., valido), often dominated their Castilian kings, and, because the kings were weak, nobles competed for control of the government. Important government offices, formerly held by members of the professional class of civil servants who had urban, and frequently Jewish, backgrounds, came into the possession of aristocratic families who eventually held them by hereditary right. The social disruption and the decay of institutions common to much of Europe in the late Middle Ages also affected Aragon, where another branch of the Trastamaras succeeded to the throne in 1416. For long periods, the overextended Aragonese kings resided in Naples, leaving their Spanish realms with weak, vulnerable governments. Economic dislocation, caused by recurring plagues and by the commercial decline of Catalonia, was the occasion for repeated revolts by regional nobility, town corporations, peasants, and, in Barcelona, by the urban proletariat. HISTORY CONTENTS <"3.htm">IBERIA <"4.htm">HISPANIA <"5.htm">AL ANDALUS <"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON <"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE Ferdinand and Isabella <"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II <"9.htm">Spain in Decline <"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN <"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession <"12.htm">The Enlightenment <"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era <"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY The Cadiz Cortes <"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento <"16.htm">Liberal Rule <"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY <"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster <"19.htm">The African War <"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN <"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR <"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS Franco's Political System <"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest <"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco <"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA Transition to Democracy <"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership <"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE <"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period Spain Spain - THE GOLDEN AGE - Ferdinand and Isabella Spain Ferdinand and Isabella The marriage in 1469 of royal cousins, Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516) and Isabella of Castile (1451-1504), eventually brought stability to both kingdoms. Isabella's niece, Juana, had bloodily disputed her succession to the throne in a conflict in which the rival claimants were given assistance by outside powers--Isabella by Aragon and Juana by her suitor, the king of Portugal. The Treaty of Alca�ovas ended the war in September 1479, and as Ferdinand had succeeded his father in Aragon earlier in the same year, it was possible to link Castile with Aragon. Both Isabella and Ferdinand understood the importance of unity; together they effected institutional reform in Castile and left Spain one of the best administered countries in Europe. Even with the personal union of the Castilian and the Aragonese crowns, Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia remained constitutionally distinct political entities, and they retained separate councils of state and parliaments. Ferdinand, who had received his political education in federalist Aragon, brought a new emphasis on constitutionalism and a respect for local fueros to Castile, where he was king consort (1479- 1504) and continued as regent after Isabella's death in 1504. Greatly admired by Italian political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Ferdinand was one of the most skillful diplomats in an age of great diplomats, and he assigned to Castile its predominant role in the dual monarchy. Ferdinand and Isabella resumed the Reconquest, dormant for more than 200 years, and in 1492 they captured <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Granada.htm">Granada, earning for themselves the title of Catholic Kings. Once Islamic Spain had ceased to exist, attention turned to the internal threat posed by hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in the recently incorporated Granada. "Spanish society drove itself," historian J.H. Elliot writes, "on a ruthless, ultimately self-defeating quest for an unattainable purity." Everywhere in sixteenth-century Europe, it was assumed that religious unity was necessary for political unity, but only in Spain was there such a sense of urgency in enforcing religious conformity. Spain's population was more heterogeneous than that of any other European nation, and it contained significant nonChristian communities. Several of these communities, including in particular some in Granada, harbored a significant element of doubtful loyalty. Moriscos (Granadan Muslims) were given the choice of voluntary exile or conversion to Christianity. Many Jews converted to Christianity, and some of these Conversos filled important government and ecclesiastical posts in Castile and in Aragon for more than 100 years. Many married or purchased their way into the nobility. Muslims in reconquered territory, called Mudejars, also lived quietly for generations as peasant farmers and skilled craftsmen. After 1525 all residents of Spain were officially Christian, but forced conversion and nominal orthodoxy were not sufficient for complete integration into Spanish society. Purity of blood (pureza de sangre) regulations were imposed on candidates for positions in the government and the church, to prevent Moriscos from becoming a force again in Spain and to eliminate participation by Conversos whose families might have been Christian for generations. Many of Spain's oldest and finest families scrambled to reconstruct family trees. The Inquisition, a state-controlled Castilian tribunal, authorized by papal bull in 1478, that soon extended throughout Spain, had the task of enforcing uniformity of religious practice. It was originally intended to investigate the sincerity of Conversos, especially those in the clergy, who had been accused of being crypto-Jews. Tomas de Torquemada, a descendant of Conversos, was the most effective and notorious of the Inquisition's prosecutors. For years religious laws were laxly enforced, particularly in Aragon, and converted Jews and Moriscos continued to observe their previous religions in private. In 1568, however, a serious rebellion broke out among the Moriscos of Andalusia, who sealed their fate by appealing to the Ottoman Empire for aid. The incident led to mass expulsions throughout Spain and to the eventual exodus of hundreds of thousands of Conversos and Moriscos, even those who had apparently become devout Christians. In the exploration and exploitation of the New World, Spain found an outlet for the crusading energies that the war against the Muslims had stimulated. In the fifteenth century, Portuguese mariners were opening a route around Africa to the East. At the same time as the Castilians, they had planted colonies in the Azores and in the Canary Islands (also Canaries; Spanish, Canarias), the latter of which had been assigned to Spain by papal decree. The conquest of Granada allowed the Catholic Kings to divert their attention to exploration, although Christopher Columbus's first voyage in 1492 was financed by foreign bankers. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, a Catalan) formally approved the division of the unexplored world between Spain and Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas, which Spain and Portugal signed one year later, moved the line of division westward and allowed Portugal to claim Brazil. New discoveries and conquests came in quick succession. Vasco Nunez de Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the circumnavigation of the globe in 1522. In 1519 the conquistador Hernando Cortes subdued the Aztecs in Mexico with a handful of followers, and between 1531 and 1533 Francisco Pizzaro overthrew the empire of the Incas and established Spanish dominion over Peru. In 1493, when Columbus brought 1,500 colonists with him on his second voyage, a royal administrator had already been appointed for the Indies. The Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias), established in 1524 acted as an advisory board to the crown on colonial affairs, and the House of Trade (Casa de Contratacion) regulated trade with the colonies. The newly established colonies were not Spanish but Castilian. They were administered as appendages of Castile, and the Aragonese were prohibited from trading or settling there. Spain Spain - Charles V and Philip II Spain Ferdinand and Isabella were the last of the Trastamaras, and a native dynasty would never again rule Spain. When their sole male heir, John, who was to have inherited all his parent's crowns, died in 1497, the succession to the throne passed to Juana, John's sister. But Juana had become the wife of Philip the Handsome, heir through his father, Emperor Maximilian I, to the Hapsburg patrimony. On Ferdinand's death in 1516, Charles of Ghent, the son of Juana and Philip, inherited Spain (which he ruled as Charles I, r. 1516-56), its colonies, and Naples. (Juana, called Juana Loca or Joanna the Mad, lived until 1555 but was judged incompetent to rule.) When Maximilian I died in 1519, Charles also inherited the Hapsburg domains in Germany. Shortly afterward he was selected Holy Roman emperor, a title that he had held as Charles V (r. 1519-56), to succeed his grandfather. Charles, in only a few years, was able to bring together the world's most diverse empire since Rome. Charles's closest attachment was to his birthplace, Flanders; he surrounded himself with Flemish advisers who were not appreciated in Spain. His duties as both Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain, moreover, never allowed him to tarry in one place. As the years of his long reign passed, however, Charles moved closer to Spain and called upon its manpower and colonial wealth to maintain the Hapsburg empire. When he abdicated in 1556 to retire to a Spanish monastery, Charles divided his empire. His son, Philip II (r. 1556-98), inherited Spain, the Italian possessions, and the Netherlands (the industrial heartland of Europe in the mid-sixteenth century). For a brief period (1554-58), Philip was also king of England as the husband of Mary Tudor (Mary I). In 1580 Philip inherited the throne of Portugal through his mother, and the Iberian Peninsula had a single monarch for the next sixty years. Philip II was a Castilian by education and temperament. He was seldom out of Spain, and he spoke only Spanish. He governed his scattered dominions through a system of councils, such as the Council of the Indies, which were staffed by professional civil servants whose activities were coordinated by the Council of State, which was responsible to Philip. The Council of State's function was only advisory. Every decision was Philip's; every question required his answer; every document needed his signature. His father had been a peripatetic emperor, but Philip, a royal bureaucrat, administered every detail of his empire from El Escorial, the forbidding palace-monastery-mausoleum on the barren plain outside Madrid. By marrying Ferdinand, Isabella had united Spain; however, she had also inevitably involved Castile in Aragon's wars in Italy against France, which had formerly been Castile's ally. The motivation in each of their children's marriages had been to circle France with Spanish allies--Habsburg, Burgundian, and English. The succession to the Spanish crown of the Habsburg dynasty, which had broader continental interests and commitments, drew Spain onto the center stage of European dynastic wars for 200 years. Well into the seventeenth century, music, art, literature, theater, dress, and manners from Spain's Golden Age were admired and imitated; they set a standard by which the rest of Europe measured its culture. Spain was also Europe's preeminent military power, with occasion to exercise its strength on many fronts--on land in Italy, Germany, North Africa, and the Netherlands, and at sea against the Dutch, French, Turks, and English. Spain was the military and diplomatic standard-bearer of the CounterReformation . Spanish fleets defeated the Turks at Malta (1565) and at Lepanto (1572)--events celebrated even in hostile England. These victories prevented the Mediterranean from becoming an Ottoman lake. The defeat of the Grand Armada in 1588 averted the planned invasion of England but was not a permanent setback for the Spanish fleet, which recovered and continued to be an effective naval force in European waters. Sixteenth-century Spain was ultimately the victim of its own wealth. Military expenditure did not stimulate domestic production. Bullion from American mines passed through Spain like water through a sieve to pay for troops in the Netherlands and Italy, to maintain the emperor's forces in Germany and ships at sea, and to satisfy conspicuous consumption at home. The glut of precious metal brought from America and spent on Spain's military establishment quickened inflation throughout Europe, left Spaniards without sufficient specie to pay debts, and caused Spanish goods to become too overpriced to compete in international markets. American bullion alone could not satisfy the demands of military expenditure. Domestic production was heavily taxed, driving up prices for Spanish-made goods. The sale of titles to entrepreneurs who bought their way up the social ladder, removing themselves from the productive sector of the economy and padding an increasingly parasitic aristocracy, provided additional funds. Potential profit from the sale of property served as an incentive for further confiscations from Conversos and Moriscos. Spain's apparent prosperity in the sixteenth century was not based on actual economic growth. As its bullion supply decreased in the seventeenth century, Spain was neither able to meet the cost of its military commitments nor to pay for imports of manufactured goods that could not be produced efficiently at home. The overall effect of plague and emigration reduced Spain's population from 8 million in the early sixteenth century to 7 million by the mid-seventeenth century. Land was taken out of production for lack of labor and the incentive to develop it, and Spain, although predominantly agrarian, depended on imports of foodstuffs. Spain Source: U.S. Library of Congress See also <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain..html">Updated population figures for Spain

Spain in Decline

The seventeenth century was a period of unremitting political, military, economic, and social decline. Neither Philip III (r. 1598-1621) nor Philip IV (r. 1621-65) was competent to give the kind of clear direction that Philip II had provided. Responsibility passed to aristocratic advisers. Gaspar de Guzman, count-duke of Olivares, attempted and failed to establish the centralized administration that his famous contemporary, Cardinal Richelieu, had introduced in France. In reaction to Guzman's bureaucratic absolutism, Catalonia revolted and was virtually annexed by France. Portugal, with English aid, reasserted its independence in 1640, and an attempt was made to separate Andalusia from Spain. In 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, Spain assented to the emperor's accommodation with the German Protestants, and in 1654 it recognized the independence of the northern Netherlands.

During the long regency for Charles II (1665-1700), the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, validos milked Spain's treasury, and Spain's government operated principally as a dispenser of patronage. Plague, famine, floods, drought, and renewed war with France wasted the country. The Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) ended fifty years of warfare with France, whose king, Louis XIV, found the temptation to exploit weakened Spain too great. As part of the peace settlement, the Spanish infanta Maria Teresa, had become the wife of Louis XIV. Using Spain's failure to pay her dowry as a pretext, Louis instigated the War of Devolution (1667- 68) to acquire the Spanish Netherlands in lieu of the dowery. Most of the European powers were ultimately involved in the wars that Louis fought in the Netherlands.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - BOURBON SPAIN

Charles II, the product of generations of inbreeding, was unable to rule and remained childless. The line of Spanish Habsburgs came to an end at his death. Habsburg partisans argued for allocating succession to the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty, but Charles II, in one of his last official acts, left Spain to his nephew, Philip of Anjou, a Bourbon and the grandson of Louis XIV. This solution appealed to Castilian legitimists because it complied with the principle of succession to the next in the bloodline. Spanish officials had been concerned with providing for the succession in such a way as to guarantee an integral, independent Spanish state that, along with its possessions in the Netherlands and in Italy, would not become part of either a pan-Bourbon or a pan-Habsburg empire. "The Pyrenees are no more," Louis XIV rejoiced at his grandson's accession as Philip V (r. 1700-24; 1725-46). The prospect of the Spanish Netherlands falling into French hands, however, alarmed the British and the Dutch.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - War of the Spanish Succession

The acceptance of the Spanish crown by Philip V in the face of counterclaims by Archduke Charles of Austria, who was supported by England and the Netherlands, was the proximate cause of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-14), the first "world war" fought by European powers. In 1705 an Anglo-Austrian force landed in Spain. A Franco-Castilian army halted its advance on Madrid, but the invaders occupied Catalonia. Castile enthusiastically received the Bourbon dynasty, but the Catalans opposed it, not so much out of loyalty to the Habsburgs as in defense of their fueros against the feared imposition of French-style centralization by a Castilian regime.

The War of the Spanish Succession was also a Spanish civil war. Britain agreed to a separate peace with France, and the allies withdrew from Catalonia, but the Catalans continued their resistance under the banner "Privilegis o Mort" (Liberty or Death). Catalonia was devastated, and Barcelona fell to Philip V after a prolonged siege (1713-14).

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) brought the war to a close and recognized the Bourbon succession in Spain on the condition that Spain and France would never be united under the same crown. The Spanish Netherlands (which become known as the Austrian Netherlands and later as Belgium) and Spain's Italian possessions, however, reverted to the Austrian Habsburgs. Britain retained Gibraltar and Minorca, seized during the war, and received trade concessions in Spanish America. Spain emerged from the war with its internal unity and colonial empire intact, but with its political position in Europe weakened.

Philip V undertook to modernize Spanish government through his French and Italian advisers. Centralized government was institutionalized, local fueros were abrogated, regional parliaments were abolished, and the aristocracy's independent influence on the councils of state was destroyed.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - The Enlightenment

Charles III (r. 1759-88), Spain's enlightened despot par excellence, served his royal apprenticeship as king of Naples. He was one of Europe's most active patrons of the Enlightenment, a period during which attempts were made to reform society through the application of reason to political, social, and economic problems. Despite Charles's attempt to reform the economy, the impact of the Enlightenment was essentially negative. Anticlericalism was an integral part of Enlightenment ideology, but it was carried to greater lengths in Spain than elsewhere in Europe because of government sponsorship. Public charities financed by the church were considered antisocial because they were thought to discourage initiative, and they were therefore abolished. The state suppressed monasteries and confiscated their property. The Jesuits, outspoken opponents of regalism, were expelled. Their expulsion virtually crippled higher education in Spain. The state also banned the teachings of medieval philosophers and of the sixteenth-century Jesuit political theorists who had argued for the "divine right of the people" over their kings. The government employed the Inquisition to discipline antiregalist clerics.

Economic recovery was noticeable, and government efficiency was greatly improved at the higher levels during Charles III's reign. The Bourbon reforms, however, resulted in no basic changes in the pattern of property holding. Neither land reform nor increased land use occurred. The rudimentary nature of bourgeois class consciousness in Spain hindered the creation of a middleclass movement. Despite the development of a national bureaucracy in Madrid, government programs foundered because of the lethargy of administrators at lower levels and because of a background rural population. The reform movement could not be sustained without the patronage of Charles III, and it did not survive him.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - The Napoleonic Era

Charles IV (r. 1788-1807) retained the trappings of his father's enlightened despotism, but he was dominated by his wife's favorite, a guards officer, Manuel de Godoy, who at the age of twenty-five was chief minister and virtual dictator of Spain. When the French National Assembly declared war in 1793, Godoy rode the popular wave of reaction building in Spain against the French Revolution and joined the coalition against France. Spanish arms suffered repeated setbacks, and in 1796 Godoy shifted allies and joined the French against Britain. Godoy, having been promised half of Portugal as his personal reward, became Napoleon Bonaparte's willing puppet. Louisiana, Spanish since 1763, was restored to France. A regular subsidy was paid to France from the Spanish treasury, and 15,000 Spanish troops were assigned to garrisons in northern Europe. Military reverses and economic misery caused a popular uprising in March 1808 that forced the desmissal of Godoy and the abdiction of Charles IV. The king was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand VII (r. 1808; 1814-33). The French forced Ferdinand to abdicate almost immediately, however, and Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was named king of Spain. A large French army was moved in to support the new government and to invade Britain's ally, Portugal, from Spanish soil. The afrancesados, a small but influential group of Spaniards who favored reconstructing their country on the French model, welcomed the Bonapartist regime.

To ingratiate himself with the afrancesados, Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed the dissolution of religious houses. The defense of the Roman Catholic Church, which had long been attacked by successive Spanish governments, now became the test of Spanish patriotism and the cause around which resistance to the French rallied. The citizens of <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Zaragoza.htm"> Zaragoza held out against superior French forces for more than a year. In Asturias, local forces took back control of their province, and an army of Valencians temporarily forced the French out of Madrid. The War of Independence (1808-14), as the Iberian phase of the Napoleonic wars is known in Spanish historiography, attained the status of a popular crusade that united all classes, parties, and regions in a common struggle. It was a war fought without rules or regular battlelines. The Spanish painter, Goya, depicted the brutality practiced on both sides.

The British dispatched an expeditionary force, originally intended to occupy part of Spanish America, to the Iberian Peninsula in 1808. In the next year, a larger contingent under Arthur Wellesley, later duke of Wellington, followed. Elements of the Spanish army held Cadiz, the only major city not taken by the French, but the countryside belonged to the guerrillas, who held down 250,000 of Napoleon's best troops under Marshal Nicholas Soult, while Wellington waited to launch the offensive that was to cause the defeat of the French at Vitoria (1813).

Spain

Spain - THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY - The Cadiz Cortes

The Cadiz Cortes

From the first days of the War of Independence, juntas, established by army commanders, guerrilla leaders, or local civilian groups, appeared in areas outside French control. They also existed underground as alternatives to the French-imposed government. Unity extended only to fighting the French, however. Coups were frequent, and there was sometimes bloody competition among military, partisan, and civilian groups for control of the juntas. A central junta sat in Cadiz. It had little authority, except as surrogate for the absent royal government. It succeeded, however, in calling together representatives from local juntas in 1810, with the vague notion of creating the Cortes of All the Spains, so called because it would be the single legislative body for the empire and its colonies. Many of the overseas provinces had by that time already declared their independence. Some saw the Cortes at Cadiz as an interim government until the Desired One, as Ferdinand VII was called by his supporters, could return to the throne. Many regalists could not admit that a parliamentary body could legislate in the absence of a king.

The delegates at the Cortes at Cadiz formed into two main currents, liberal and conservative. The liberals carried on the reformist philisophy of Charles III and added to it many of the new ideals of the French Revolution. They wanted equality before the law, a centralized government, an efficient modern civil service, a reform of the tax system, the replacement of feudal privileges by freedom of contract, and the recognition of the property owner's right to use his property as he saw fit. As the liberals were the majority, they were able to transform the assembly from interim government to constitutional convention. The product of the Cortes' deliberations reflected the liberals dominance for the constitution of 1812 came to be the "sacred codex" of liberalism, and during the nineteenth century it served as a model for liberal constitutions of Latin nations.

As the principal aim of the new constitution was the prevention of arbitrary and corrupt royal rule, it provided for a limited monarchy which governed through ministers subject to parliamentary control. Suffrage, determined by property qualifications, favored the position of the commercial class in the new parliament, in which there was no special provision for the Church or the nobility. The constitution set up a rational and efficient centralized administrative system based on newly formed provinces and municipalties rather than on the historic provinces. Repeal of traditional property restrictions gave the liberals the freer economy they wanted.

The 1812 Constitution marked the initiation of the Spanish tradition of liberalism; by the country's standards, however, it was a revolutionary document, and when Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne in 1814 he refused to recognize it. He dismissed the Cadiz Cortes and was determined to rule as an absolute monarch.

Spain's American colonies took advantage of the postwar chaos to proclaim their independence, and most established republican governments. By 1825 only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under the Spanish flag in the New World. When Ferdinand was restored to the throne in Madrid, he expended wealth and manpower in a vain effort to reassert control over the colonies. The move was unpopular among liberal officers assigned to the American wars.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Rule by Pronunciamiento

In 1820 Major Rafael de Riego led a revolt among troops quartered in Cadiz while awaiting embarkation to America. Garrison mutinies were not unusual, but Riego issued a pronunciamiento or declaration of principles, to the troops, which was directed against the government and which called for the army to support adoption of the 1812 constitution. Support for Riego spread from garrison to garrison, toppling the regalist government and forcing Ferdinand to accept the liberal constitution. The pronunciamiento, distributed by barracks politicians among underpaid members of an overstaffed officer corps, became a regular feature of Spanish politics. An officer or group of officers would seek a consensus among fellow officers in opposing or supporting a particular policy or in calling for a change in government. If any government were to survive, it needed the support of the army. If a pronunciamiento received sufficient backing, the government was well advised to defer to it. This "referendum in blood" was considered within the army to be the purest form of election because the soldiers supporting a pronunciamiento--at least in theory--were expressing their willingness to shed blood to make their point. A pronunciamiento was judged to have succeeded only if the government gave in to it without a fight. If it did not represent a consensus within the army and there was resistance to it, the pronunciamiento was considered a failure, and the officers who had proposed it dutifully went into exile.

French intervention, ordered by Louis XVIII on an appeal from Ferdinand and with the assent of his conservative officers, brought the three years of liberal government under the 1812 constitution--called the Constitutional Triennium (1820-23)--to an abrupt close. The arrival of the French was welcomed in many sectors. Ferdinand, restored as absolute monarch, chose his ministers from the ranks of the old afrancesados.

Ferdinand VII, a widower, was childless, and Don Carlos, his popular, traditionalist brother, was heir presumptive. In 1829, however, Ferdinand married his Neapolitan cousin, Maria Cristina, who gave birth to a daughter, an event followed closely by the revocation of provisions prohibiting female succession. Ferdinand died in 1833, leaving Maria Cristina as regent for their daughter, Isabella II (1833-68).

Don Carlos contested his niece's succession, and he won the fanatical support of the traditionalists of Aragon and of Basque Navarre (Spanish, Navarra). The Carlists (supporters of Don Carlos) held that legitimate succession was possible only through the male line. Comprised of agrarians, regionalists, and Catholics, the Carlists also opposed the middle-class-- centralist, anticlerical Liberals who flocked to support the regency. The Carlists fielded an army that held off government attempts to suppress them for six years (1833-39), during which time Maria Cristina received British aid in arms and volunteers. A Carlist offensive against Madrid in 1837 failed, but in the mountains, the Basques continued to resist until a compromise peace in 1839 recognized their ancient fueros. Sentiment for Don Carlos and for his successor, remained strong in Navarre, and the Carlists continued as a serious political force. Carlist uprisings occurred in 1847 and again from 1872 to 1876.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Liberal Rule

The regency had come to depend on liberal support within the army during the first Carlist war, but after the end of the war against the traditionalists, both the Liberals and the army tired of Maria Cristina. They forced her to resign in 1840, and a liberal government assumed responsibility for the regency.

The Liberals were a narrowly based elite. Their abstract idealism and concern for individual liberties contrasted sharply with the paternalistic attitudes of Spain's rural society. There was no monolithic liberal movement in Spain, but anticlericalism, the touchstone of liberalism, unified the factions. They theorized that the state was the sum of the individuals living within it and that it could recognize and protect only the rights of individuals, not the rights of corporate institutions, such as the church or universities, or the rights of the regions as separate entities with distinct customs and interests. Because only individuals were subject to the law, only individuals could hold title to land. As nothing should impede the development of the individual, so nothing should impede the state in guaranteeing the rights of the individual.

Liberals also agreed on the necessity of a written constitution, a parliamentary government, and a centralized administration, as well as the need for laissez-faire economics. All factions found a voice in the army and drew leadership from its ranks. All had confidence that progress would follow naturally from the application of liberal principles. They differed, however, on the methods to be used in applying these principles.

The Moderates saw economic development within a free market as the cure for political revolution. They argued for a strong constitution that would spell out guaranteed liberties. The Progressives, like the Moderates, were members of the upper and the middle classes, but they drew support from the urban masses and favored creation of a more broadly based electorate. They argued that greater participation in the political process would ensure economic development and an equitable distribution of its fruits. Both factions favored constitutional monarchy. The more radical Democrats, however, believed that political freedom and economic liberalism could only be achieved in a republic.

The army backed the Moderates, who dominated the new regency in coalition with supporters of Isabella's succession. Local political leaders, called caciques, regularly delivered the vote for government candidates in return for patronage and assured the Moderates of parliamentary majorities. The Progressives courted the Democrats enough to be certain of regular inclusion in the government. State relations with the church continued to be the most sensitive issue confronting the government and the most divisive issue throughout the country. Despite their anticlericalism, the Moderates concluded a rapprochement with the church, which agreed to surrender its claim to confiscated property in return for official recognition by the state and a role in education. Reconciliation with the church did not, however, win the Moderates conservative rural support.

Modest economic gains were made during the administration of General Leopoldo O'Donnell, an advocate of laissez-faire policies, who came to power in 1856 through a pronunciamiento. O'Donnell had encouraged foreign investors to provide Spain with a railroad system, and he had also sponsored Spain's overseas expansion, particularly in Africa. Little economic growth was stimulated, however, except in Catalonia and the Basque region, both of which had already possessed an industrial base. Promises for land reform were broken.

O'Donnell was one of a number of political and military figures around whom personalist political parties formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of these parties failed to survive their leaders' active political careers. O'Donnell, for example, formed the Liberal Union as a fusion party broad enough to hold most liberals and to counter the drift of left-wing Progressives to the Democrats. After several years of cooperating with the one-party parliamentary regime, the Progressives withdrew their support, and in 1866 a military coup toppled O'Donnell.

In 1868 an army revolt, led by exiled officers determined to force Isabella from the throne, brought General Juan Prim, an army hero and popular Progressive leader, to power. Isabella's abdication inaugurated a period of experimentation with a liberal monarchy, a federal republic, and finally a military dictatorship.

As prime minister, Prim canvased Europe for a ruler to replace Isabella. A tentative offer made to a Hohenzollern prince was sufficient spark to set off the Franco-Prussian War (1870- 71). Prim found a likely royal candidate in Amadeo of Savoy, son of the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel II. Shortly after Amadeo's arrival in Spain, Prim was assassinated, leaving the new king, without a mentor, at the mercy of hostile politicians. The constitution bequeathed to the new monarchy did not leave Amadeo sufficient power to supervise the formation of a stable government. Mistrustful of Prim's foreign prince, factional leaders refused to cooperate with, or to advise, Amadeo. Deserted finally by the army, Amadeo abdicated, leaving a rump parliament to proclaim Spain a federal republic.

The constitution of the First Republic (1873-74) provided for internally self-governing provinces that were bound to the federal government by voluntary agreement. Jurisdiction over foreign and colonial affairs and defense was reserved for Madrid. In its eight-month life, the federal republic had four presidents, none of whom could find a prime minister to form a stable cabinet. The government could not decentralize quickly enough to satisfy local radicals. Cities and provinces made unilateral declarations of autonomy. Madrid lost control of the country, and once again the army stepped in to rescue the "national honor." A national government in the form of a unitary republic served briefly as the transparent disguise for an interim military dictatorship.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY

A brigadier's pronunciamiento that called Isabella's son, the able British-educated Alfonso XII (r. 1875-85), to the throne was sufficient to restore the Bourbon monarchy. Alfonso identified himself as "Spaniard, Catholic, and Liberal," and his succession was greeted with a degree of relief, even by supporters of the republic. He cultivated good relations with the army (Alfonso was a cadet at Sandhurst, the British military academy, when summoned to Spain), which had removed itself from politics because it was content with the stable, popular civilian government. Alfonso insisted that the official status of the church be confirmed constitutionally, thus assuring the restored monarchy of conservative support.

British practices served as the model for the new constitution's political provisions. The new government used electoral manipulation to construct and to maintain a two-party system in parliament, but the result was more a parody than an imitation. Conservatives and Liberals, who differed in very little except name, exchanged control of the government at regular intervals after general elections. Once again, caciques delivered the vote to one party or the other as directed--in return for the assurance of patronage from whichever was scheduled to win, thus controlling the elections at the constituency level. The tendency toward party fracturing and personalism remained a threat to the system, but the restoration monarchy's artificial two-party system gave Spain a generation of relative quiet.

Alfonso XIII (r. 1886-1931) was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII. The mother of Alfonso XIII, another Maria Cristina, acted as regent until her son came of age officially in 1902. Alfonso XIII abdicated in 1931.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - The Cuban Disaster

Emigration to Cuba from Spain was heavy in the nineteenth century, and the Cuban middle class, which had close ties to the mother country, favored keeping Cuba Spanish. Cuba had experienced periodic uprisings by independence movements since 1868. Successive governments in <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Madrid.htm"> Madrid were committed to maintaining whatever armed forces were necessary to combat insurgency. Hostilities broke out again in 1895. The United States clandestinely supported these hostilities, which required Spain to send substantial reinforcements under General Valerio Weyler. Reports of Weyler's suppression of the independence movement, and the mysterious explosion of the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor, stirred public opinion in the United States and led to a declaration of war by the United States in April 1898. The United States destroyed antiquated Spanish naval units at Santiago de Cuba and in Manila Bay. Despite a pledge by Madrid to defend Cuba "to the last peseta," the Spanish army surrendered after a few weeks of hostilities against an American expeditionary force. In Paris that September, Spain gave up Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

The suddenness and the totality of Spain's defeat as well as the country's realization of its lack of European support during the war with the United States (only Germany had offered diplomatic backing) threw Spain into despair. The disaster called forth an intellectual reevaluation of Spain's position in the world by the so-called "Generation of 1898," who confronted Spaniards with the propositions that Spain had long since ceased to be a country of consequence, that its society was archaic, and that its institutions were outworn and incapable of moving into the twentieth century. These words were painful for the proud nation.

The traumatic events of 1898 and the inability of the government to deal with them prompted political reevaluation. A plethora of new, often short-lived, personalist parties and regional groups on both the left and the right (that broke the hegemony of the two-party system and ultimately left the parliamentary structure in disarray) sought solutions to the country's problems. By 1915 it was virtually impossible to form a coalition government that could command the support of a parliamentary majority.

Some politicians on the right, like the conservative, Antonio Maura, argued for a return to traditional authoritarianism, and they blamed the parliamentary regimes (kept in power by caciques) for corrupting the country. Maura failed in his attempt to form a national Catholic party, but he inspired a number of right-wing groups with his political philosophy.

Regionalist movements were organized to free progressive Catalonia, the Basque areas, and Galicia from the "Castilian corpse." Whether on the left or on the right, residents of these regions stressed their distinct character and history. An electoral coalition of Catalan parties regularly sent strong parliamentary contingents to Madrid to barter their votes for concessions to Catalonian regionalism.

Alejandro Lerroux was an effective, but demagogical, political organizer who took his Liberal splinter group into the antimonarchist camp. He formed the Radical Republicans on a national, middle-class base that frequently allied itself with the Catalans.

The democratic, Marxist-oriented Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE), founded in 1879, grew rapidly in the north, especially in Asturias, where a trade union, the General Union of Workers (Union General de Trabajadores--UGT), had most effectively organized the working class.

The Federation of Iberian Anarchists (Federacion Anarquista Iberica) was well organized in Catalonia and Andalusia and had many members, but in keeping with anarchist philosophy, they remained aloof from participation in the electoral process. Their abstention, however, had a telling effect. They practiced terrorism, and the anarchist trade union, the National Confederation of Labor (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo--CNT), was able on several occasions to shut down Barcelona. The aim of the anarchists was not to take control of the government, but to make government impossible.

Spain

Spain - The African War

Spain was neutral in World War I, but the Spanish army was constantly engaged from 1909 to 1926 against Abd al Krim's Riff Berbers in Morocco, where Spain had joined France in proclaiming a protectorate. Successive civilian governments in Spain allowed the war to continue, but they refused to supply the army with the means to win it. Spanish losses were heavy to their fierce and skillful enemy, who was equipped with superior weapons. Riots against conscription for the African war spread disorder throughout the country, and opposition to the war was often expressed in church burnings. Officers, who often had served in Morocco, formed juntas to register complaints that were just short of pronunciamientos against wartime inflation, low fixed salaries for the military, alleged civilian corruption, and inadequate and scarce equipment.

Conditions in Morocco, increased anarchist and communist terrorism, industrial unrest, and the effects of the postwar economic slump prompted the pronunciamiento that brought a general officer, Miguel Primo de Rivera (in power, 1923-30), into office. His authoritarian regime originally enjoyed wide support in much of the country and had the confidence of the king and the loyalty of the army. The government lacked an ideological foundation, however; its mandate was based on general disillusionment with both the parliamentary government and the extreme partisan politics of the previous period.

Once in power, Primo de Rivera dissolved parliament and ruled through directorates and the aid of the military until 1930. His regime sponsored public works to curb unemployment. Protectionism and state control of the economy led to a temporary economic recovery. A better led and better supplied army brought the African war to a successful conclusion in 1926.

The precipitous economic decline in 1930 undercut support for the government from special-interest groups. For seven years, Primo de Rivera remained a man on horseback. He established no new system to replace parliamentary government. Criticism from academics mounted. Bankers expressed disappointment at the state loans that his government had tried to float. An attempt to reform the promotion system cost him the support of the army. This loss of army support caused him to lose the support of the king. Primo de Rivera resigned and died shortly afterward in exile.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

REPUBLICAN SPAIN

Antimonarchist parties won a substantial vote in the 1931 municipal elections. Alfonso XIII interpreted the outcome of the elections and the riots that followed as an indication of imminent civil war. He left the country with his family and appealed to the army for support in upholding the monarchy. When General Jose Sanjurjo, army chief of staff, replied that the armed forces would not support the king against the will of the people, Alfonso abdicated.

A multiparty coalition in which regional parties held the balance met at a constitutional convention at San Sebastian, the summer capital, to proclaim the Second Republic. The goals of the new republic, set forth at the convention, included reform of the army, the granting of regional autonomy, social reform and economic redistribution, the separation of church and state, and depriving the church of a role in education. Niceto Alcala Zamora, a nonparty conservative, became president and called elections for June.

The first general election of the Second Republic gave a majority to a coalition of the Republican Left (Izquierda Republicana--IR)--a middle-class radical party led by Manuel Azana, who became prime minister--and labor leader Francisco Largo Caballero's PSOE, backed by the UGT. Azana pledged that his government would gradually introduce socialism through the democratic process. His gradualism alienated the political left; his socialism, the right.

Azana's republicanism, like nineteenth-century liberalism and Bourbon regalism before it, was inevitably associated with anticlericalism. His government proposed to carry out the constitutional convention's recommendations for complete state control of education.

In 1932 the Catalan Generalitat gained recognition as the autonomous regional government for Catalonia. The region remained part of the Spanish republic and was tied more closely to it because of Madrid's grant of autonomy. Representatives from Catalonia to the Madrid parliament played an active role in national affairs. Efforts to reform the army and to eliminate its political power provoked a pronunciamiento against the government by Sanjurjo. The pronunciamiento, though unsuccessful, forced Azana to back down from dealing with the military establishment for the time being.

Azana's greatest difficulties derived from doctrinal differences within the government between his non-Marxist, bourgeois IR and the PSOE, who, after an initial period of cooperation, obstructed Azana at every step. Opposition from the UGT blocked attempts at labor legislation. The PSOE complained that Azana's reforms were inadequate to produce meaningful social change, though there was no parliamentary majority that would have approved Largo Caballero's far-reaching proposals to improve conditions for working people. Azana's legislative program may not have satisfied his ally, but it did rally moderate and conservative opinion against the coalition on the eve of the second general election in November 1932.

Azana's principal parliamentary opposition came from the two largest parties that could claim a national constituency, Lerroux's moderate, middle-class Radical Republicans and a rightwing Catholic organization, the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederacion Espanola de Derechas Autonomas-- CEDA). Lerroux, who had grown more conservative and tolerant since his days as an antimonarchist firebrand, capitalized on the left's failures to reach a compromise with the church and to deal with industrial unrest and with the extragovernmental power of the UGT and the CNT. He appealed for conservative support by showing that Azana was at the mercy of the unions--as he was when in coalition with Largo Caballero.

CEDA was a coalition of groups under the leadership of Jose Maria Gil Robles, a law professor from <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Salamanca.htm"> Salamanca who had headed Popular Action (Accion Popular), an influential Catholic political youth movement. As a broadly based fusion party, CEDA could not afford a doctrinaire political stance, and its flexibility was part of its strength. Some elements in the party, however, favored a Christian social democracy, and they took the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII as their guide. CEDA never succeeded in establishing a working-class base. Its electoral strength lay in the Catholic middle class and in the rural population. Gil Robles was primarily interested in 1932 in working for a settlement favorable to the church within the constitutional structure of the republic.

In the November election, the IR and the PSOE ran separately rather than placing candidates on a common slate. Combined electoral lists, permitted under the constitution, encouraged coalitions; they were intended to prevent parliamentary fragmentation in the multiparty system.

The government parties lost seats, and CEDA emerged as the largest single party in parliament. CEDA's showing at the polls was taken as a sign of conservative Spain's disenchantment with the Republic and its anticlericalism. But there was no question that the Catholic right was being called on to form a government. President Zamora was hostile to CEDA, and he urged Lerroux to head a minority government. Lerroux agreed, but he entered into a parliamentary alliance with CEDA a little more than a year later. Lerroux did not welcome the center-right coalition; however, he knew the coalition presented the only means by which a parliamentary majority that included his party could be obtained. Gil Robles was appointed minister for war, with a role in maintaining public order, in the new government.

Unions used strikes as political weapons, much as the army had used the pronunciamiento. Industrial disorder climaxed in a miners' strike in Asturias, which Azana openly and actively supported. The police and the army commanded by Franco crushed the miners. The strike confirmed to the right that the left could not be trusted to abide by constitutional processes, and the suppression of the strike proved to the left that the right was "fascist." Azana accused Gil Robles of using republican institutions to destroy the republic.

The Lerroux-Gil Robles government had as its first priority the restoration of order, although the government's existence was the chief cause of the disorder. Action on labor's legitimate grievances was postponed until order was restored. The most controversial of Gil Robles's programs, however, was finding the means to effect a reconciliation with the church. In the context of the coalition with Lerroux, he also attempted to expand his political base by courting the support of antirepublican elements. The government resigned in November 1935 over a minor issue. Zamora refused to sanction the formation of a new government by CEDA, without the cooperation of which no moderate government could be put together. On the advice of the left, Zamora called a new general election for February 1936.

The Asturian miners' strike had polarized public opinion and had led to the consolidation of parties on the left from Azana's IR to the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de Espana-- PCE). The PSOE had been increasingly "bolshevized," and it was difficult for a social democrat, such as Largo Caballero, to control his party, which drifted leftward. In 1935 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sanctioned communist participation in popular front governments with bourgeois and democratic socialist parties. The Left Republicans, the PSOE, the Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya), the communists, a number of smaller regional and left-wing parties, and the anarchists, who had boycotted previous elections as a matter of principle, joined to present a single leftist slate to the electorate.

The Spanish Popular Front was to be only an electoral coalition. Its goal was not to form a government but to defeat the right. Largo Caballero made it clear that the Socialists would not cooperate in any government that did not adopt their program for nationalization, a policy as much guaranteed to break Spain in two and to provoke a civil war as the appointment of the CEDA-dominated government that Zamora had worked to prevent.

The general election produced a number of irregularities that led the left, the right, and the center to claim massive voting fraud. Two subsequent runoff votes, recounts, and an electoral commission controlled by the left provided the Popular Front with an impressive number of parliamentary seats. Azana formed his minority government, but the front's victory was taken as the signal for the start of the left's long-awaited revolution, already anticipated by street riots, church burnings, and strikes. Workers' councils, which undertook to circumvent the slow-grinding wheels of the constitutional process, set up governments parallel to the traditional bodies. Zamora was removed from office on the grounds that he had gone beyond his constitutional authority in calling the general election. Azana was named to replace him, depriving the IR of his strong leadership.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Gil Robles's influence, as a spokesman for the right in the new parliament, waned. The National Block, a smaller coalition of monarchists and fascists led by Jose Calvo Sotelo, who had sought the army's cooperation in restoring Alfonso XIII, assumed CEDA's role. Calvo Sotelo was murdered in July 1936, supposedly in retaliation for the killing of a police officer by fascists. Calvo Sotelo's death was a signal to the army to act on the pretext that the civilian government had allowed the country to fall into disorder. The army issued a pronunciamiento. A coup was expected, however, and the urban police and the workers' militia loyal to the government put down revolts by army garrisons in Madrid and Barcelona. Navy crews spontaneously purged their ships of officers. The army and the left rejected the eleventh-hour efforts of Indalecio Prieto (who had succeeded Azana as prime minister) to arrive at a compromise.

The army was most successful in the north, where General Emilio Mola had established his headquarters at Burgos. North-central Spain and the Carlist strongholds in Navarre and Aragon rallied to the army. In Morocco, elite units seized control under Franco, Spain's youngest general and hero. Transport supplied by Germany and Italy ferried Franco's African army, including Moorish auxiliaries, to Andalusia. Franco occupied the major cities in the south before turning toward Madrid to link up with Mola, who was advancing from Burgos. The relief of the army garrison besieged at Toledo, however, delayed the attack on Madrid and allowed time for preparation of the capital's defense. Army units penetrated the city limits, but they were driven back, and the Nationalists were able to retain the city.

A junta of generals, including Franco, formed a government at Burgos, which Germany and Italy immediately recognized. Sanjurjo, who had been expected to lead the army movement, was killed in a plane crash during the first days of the uprising. In October 1936, Franco was named head of state, with the rank of generalissimo and the title el caudillo (the leader).

When he assumed leadership of the Nationalist forces, Franco had a reputation as a highly professional, career-oriented, combat soldier, who had developed into a first-rate officer. Commissioned in the army at the age of eighteen, he had volunteered for service in Morocco, where he had distinguished himself as a courageous leader. Serious, studious, humorless, withdrawn, and abstemious, he had won the respect and the confidence of his subordinates more readily than he had won the comradeship of his brother officers. At the age of thirty-three, he had become the youngest general in Europe since Napoleon Bonaparte.

Franco opposed Sanjurjo in 1932; still, Azana considered Franco unreliable and made him captain general of the Canaries, a virtual exile for an ambitious officer. Though by nature a conservative, Franco did not wed himself to any particular political creed. On taking power, he set about to reconcile all right-wing, antirepublican groups in one Nationalist organization. The Falange, a fascist party founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera (the dictator's son), provided the catalyst. The Carlists, revived after 1931, merged with the Falange in 1937, but the association was never harmonious. Jose Antonio's execution by the Republicans provided the Falange with a martyr. The more radical of the early Falange programs were pushed aside by more moderate elements, and the Nationalists' trade unionism was only a shadow of what Jose Antonio had intended. The Nationalist organization did keep its fascist facade, but Franco's strength lay in the army.

Nationalist strategy called for separating Madrid from Catalonia (which was firmly Republican), Valencia, and Murcia (which the republic also controlled). The Republicans stabilized the front around Madrid, defending it against the Nationalists for three years. Isolated Asturias and Vizcaya, where the newly organized Basque Republic fought to defend its autonomy without assistance from Madrid, fell to Franco in October 1937. Otherwise the battlelines were static until July 1938, when Nationalist forces broke through to the Mediterranean Sea south of Barcelona. Throughout the Civil War, the industrial areas--except Asturias and the Basque provinces--remained in Republican hands, while the chief food-producing areas were under Nationalist control.

The republic lacked a regular trained army, though a number of armed forces cadres had remained loyal, especially in the air force and the navy. Many of the loyal officers were either purged or were not trusted to hold command positions. The workers' militia and independently organized armed political units like those of the Trotskyite Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista--POUM) bore the brunt of the fighting in the early months of the Civil War. For example, the anarchist UGT militia and the Assault Guards (the urban police corps established by the Republic to counterbalance the Civil Guard--Guardia Civil--the paramilitary rural police who were generally considered reactionary) crushed the army garrison in Barcelona. Moscow provided advisers, logistics experts, and some field-grade officers. Foreign volunteers, including more than 2,000 from the United States, formed the International Brigade. The communists pressed for, and won, approval for the creation of a national, conscript Republican army.

The Soviet Union supplied arms and munitions to the republic from the opening days of the Civil War. France provided some aircraft and artillery. The republic's only other conduit for arms supply was through Mexico. The so-called spontaneous revolutions that plagued the industrial centers hampered arms production within Spain.

Nationalist strength was based on the regular army, which included large contingents of Moroccan troops and battalions of the Foreign Legion, which Franco had commanded in Africa. The Carlists, who had always maintained a clandestine militia (requetes), were among Franco's most effective troops, and they were employed, together with the Moroccans, as a shock corps. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Fascist premier, 1922- 45) dispatched more than 50,000 Italian "volunteers" (most of them army conscripts) to Spain, along with air and naval units. The German Condor Legion, made infamous by the bombing of Guernica, provided air support for the Nationalists and tested the tactics and the equipment used a few years later by the Luftwaffe (German air force). Germany and Italy also supplied large quantities of artillery and armor, as well as the personnel to use this weaponry.

A nonintervention commission, including representatives from France, Britain, Germany, and Italy, was established at the Lyon Conference in 1936 to stem the flow of supplies to both sides. France and Britain were concerned that escalating foreign intervention could turn Spain's Civil War into a European war. The commission and coastal patrols supplied by the signatory powers were to enforce an embargo. The net effect of the nonintervention agreement was to cut off French and British aid to the republic. Germany and Italy did not observe the agreement. The Soviet Union was not a signatory. By 1938, however, Stalin had lost interest in Spain.

While the Republicans resisted the Nationalists by all available means, another struggle was going on within their own ranks. A majority fought essentially to protect republican institutions. Others, including the communists, were committed to finishing the Civil War before beginning their anticipated revolution. They were, however, resisted by comrades-in-arms--the Trotskyites and anarchists--who were intent on completing the social and political revolution while waging war against the Nationalists.

Largo Caballero, who became prime minister in September 1936, had the support of the Socialists and of the communists, who were becoming the most important political factor in the republican government. The communists, after successfully arguing for a national conscript army that could be directed by the government, pressed for elimination of the militia units. They also argued for postponing the revolution until the fascists had been defeated and encouraged greater participation by the bourgeois parties in the Popular Front. The UGT, increasingly under communist influence, entered into the government, and the more militant elements within it were purged. POUM, which had resisted disbanding its independent military units and merging with the communist-controlled national army, was ruthlessly suppressed as the communists undertook to eliminate competing leftist organizations. Anarchists were dealt with in similar fashion, and in Catalonia a civil war raged within a civil war.

Fearing the growth of Soviet influence in Spain, Largo Caballero attempted to negotiate a compromise that would end the Civil War. He was removed from office and replaced by Juan Negrin, a procommunist socialist with little previous political experience.

The Republican army, its attention diverted by internal political battles, was never able to mount a sustained counteroffensive or to exploit a breakthrough such as that on the Rio Ebro in 1938. Negrin realized that Spaniards in Spain could not win the war, but he hoped to prolong the fighting until the outbreak of a European war, which he thought was imminent.

Barcelona fell to the Nationalists in January 1939, and Valencia, the temporary capital, fell in March. When factional fighting broke out in Madrid among the city's defenders, the Republican army commander seized control of what remained of the government and surrendered to the Nationalists on the last day of March, thus ending the Civil War.

There is as much controversy over the number of casualties of the Spanish Civil War as there is about the results of the 1936 election, but even conservative estimates are high. The most consistent estimate is 600,000 dead from all causes, including combat, bombing, and executions. In the Republican sector, tens of thousands died of starvation, and several hundred thousand more fled from Spain.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - THE FRANCO YEARS

Franco's Political System

The leader of the Nationalist forces, General Franco, headed the authoritarian regime that came to power in the aftermath of the Civil War. Until his death in November 1975, Franco ruled Spain as "Caudillo by the grace of God," as his coins proclaimed. In addition to being generalissimo of the armed forces, he was both chief of state and head of government, the ultimate source of legitimate authority. He retained the power to appoint and to dismiss ministers and other decision makers. Even after he grew older, began to lose his health, and became less actively involved in policy making, Franco still had the final word on every major political decision.

Ideology or political theories were not the primary motivators in Franco's developing of the institutions that came to be identified with his name. Franco had spent his life as a professional soldier, and his conception of society was along military lines. Known for his iron political nerve, Franco saw himself as the one designated to save Spain from the chaos and instability visited upon the country by the evils of parliamentary democracy and political parties, which he blamed for destroying the unity of Spain. His pragmatic goal was to maintain power in order to keep what he termed the "anti-Spain" forces from gaining ascendancy.

The political structures established under Franco's rule represented this pragmatic approach. Because he never formulated a true, comprehensive, constitutional system, Franco had great flexibility in dealing with changing domestic and international situations. Seven fundamental laws decreed during his rule provided the regime with a semblance of constitutionalism, but they were developed after the fact, usually to legitimize an existing situation or distribution of power.

The first of these fundamental laws was the Labor Charter, promulgated on March 9, 1938. It set forth the social policy of the regime, and it stressed the mutual obligations of the state and its citizens: all Spaniards had the duty to work, and the state was to assure them the right to work. Although the decree called for adequate wages, paid vacations, and a limit to working hours, it ensured labor's compliance with the new regime by labeling strikes as treason. Later legislation required Spanish workers to join vertical syndicates in which both owners and employees were supposed to cooperate for the good of the nation.

Another fundamental law, the Constituent Law of the Cortes (1942), provided the trappings of constitutionalism. This Cortes (Spanish Parliament), was purely an advisory body, and it had little in common with democratic legislatures. Most of its members were indirectly elected or appointed, and many were already part of the administration. The Cortes did not have the right to initiate legislation or to vote against the government; it could only approve laws presented by the executive. There was no vestige of power attached to this function because the law permitted Franco to legislate by decree without consulting the Cortes. The Council of Ministers, the members of which were appointed by, and presided over, by Franco, exercised executive authority. Franco had the right to dismiss these ministers.

Following the Allied victories in 1945, Franco sought to impress the world's democratic powers with Spain's "liberal" credentials by issuing a fundamental law that was ostensibly a bill of rights--the Charter of Rights. The rights granted by this charter were more cosmetic than democratic, because the government bestowed them and could suspend them without justification; furthermore, the charter placed more emphasis on the duty of all Spaniards to serve their country and to obey its laws than on their basic rights as citizens. Thus, for example, the charter guaranteed all Spaniards the right to express their opinions freely, but they were not to attack the fundamental principles of the state.

The Law on Referenda, also issued in 1945, was a further attempt by Franco to make his regime appear less arbitrary. It provided that issues of national concern would be submitted for the consideration of Spanish citizens by means of popular referenda. Franco decreed this law without having consulted the Cortes, however, and he retained the sole right to determine whether a referendum would be called. The law stipulated that after 1947, a referendum would have to be called in order to alter any fundamental law; Franco retained the right to decree such laws, however--a right which he exercised in 1958.

Additional measures that were taken in the immediate postwar years to provide the Franco regime with a facade of democracy included pardons and reduced terms for prisoners convicted of civil war crimes and a guarantee that refugees who returned would not be prosecuted if they did not engage in political activities. The regime announced new elections for municipal councils; council members were to be selected indirectly by syndicates and heads of "families." The government retained the right to appoint all mayors directly.

The Law of Succession (1947) was the first of the fundamental laws to be submitted to popular referendum. It proclaimed that Spain would be a "Catholic, social, and representative monarchy" and that Franco would be regent for life (unless incapacitated). Franco had the authority to name the next king when he thought the time was appropriate and also to revoke his choice at a later date if he so desired. The law also provided for a Council of the Realm to assist Franco in the exercise of executive power and for a three-member Regency Council to be in charge of the government during the period of transition to the Caudillo's successor. When the plebiscite was held, over 90 percent of the 15 million voters approved the measures. Although the Law of Succession ostensibly reestablished the monarchy, it actually solidified Franco's rule and legitimized his position as head of state by popular suffrage.

The sixth fundamental law, the Law on the Principles of the National Movement--which Franco decreed unilaterally in 1958-- further defined the institutions of Franco's government. The National Movement--a coalition of right-wing groups referred to as political "families"--termed a "communion" rather than a party, was designated as the sole forum for political participation. The law reaffirmed the nature of Spain as a traditional, Catholic monarchy. All top government officials, as well as all possible future successors to Franco, were required to pledge their loyalty to the principles embodied in this law (which was presented as a synthesis of all previous fundamental laws).

The final fundamental law, the Organic Law of the State, was presented in 1966. It incorporated no major changes, but was designed to codify and to clarify existing practices, while allowing for some degree of reform. It established a separation between the functions of the president of government (prime minister) and the head of state, and it outlined the procedures for the selection of top government officials. It included other measures designed to modernize the Spanish system and to eliminate vestiges of fascist terminology. Although presented as a move toward democratization, it nevertheless retained the basic structure of an authoritarian system.

Franco initially derived his authority from his victory in the Civil War. The armed forces gave his regime security; the Roman Catholic Church and the National Movement gave it legitimacy. The National Movement was the only recognized political organization in Franco's Spain. It was not a political party, and it did not have an overt ideological basis. Its membership included monarchists, Falangists, conservative Catholics, members of the armed forces, as well as business groups with (vested interests in continuity), technocrats, and civil servants. Although there was some overlap among these groups, they had distinct, and often contradictory, interests. The force that fused them together was their common loyalty to Franco. Franco was particularly skillful in manipulating each of these "families," giving each a taste of power, but not allowing any group or individual to create an independent base from which to challenge his authority.

Franco's political system was virtually the antithesis of the final government of the republican era--the Popular Front government. In contrast to the anticlericalism of the Popular Front, the Francoist regime established policies that were highly favorable to the Catholic Church, which was restored to its previous status as the official religion of Spain. In addition to receiving government subsidies, the church regained its dominant position in the education system, and laws conformed to Catholic dogma. Gains in regional autonomy were reversed under Franco, and Spain reverted to being a highly centralized state. The regime abolished regional governmental bodies and enacted measures against the use of the Basque and the Catalan languages. Further contrast between the Popular Front government and the Franco regime was apparent in their bases of support. Whereas the liberal leftists and the working class elements of society had supported the Popular Front, the conservative upper classes were the mainstay of Franco's government.

Above all, Franco endeavored to remove all vestiges of parliamentary democracy, which he perceived to be alien to Spanish political traditions. He outlawed political parties, blaming them for the chaotic conditions that had preceded the Civil War. He eliminated universal suffrage and severely limited the freedoms of expression and association; he viewed criticism of the regime as treason.

In spite of the regime's strong degree of control, Franco did not pursue totalitarian domination of all social, cultural, and religious institutions, or of the economy as a whole. The Franco regime also lacked the ideological impetus characteristic of totalitarian governments. Furthermore, for those willing to work within the system, there was a limited form of pluralism. Thus, Franco's rule has been characterized as authoritarian rather than totalitarian.

Whereas there is generally consensus among analysts in designating the regime as authoritarian, there is less agreement concerning the fascist component of Franco's Spain. In its early period, the Francoist state was considered, outside Spain, to be fascist. The Falangist program of national syndicalism reflected the pattern of fascism prevalent in Europe during those years; nevertheless, core Falangists never played a major role in the new state. Most of the key leaders of the Falange did not survive the Civil War, and Franco moved quickly to subordinate the fascist party, merging it as well as more conservative and traditional political forces into the broader and vaguer National Movement under his direct control. The links between Franco's regime and the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the course of international developments, further mitigated the fascist component. Thus, while there was a definite fascist element during the first decade of Franco's rule, most analysts have concluded that early Francoism can more accurately be described as semifascist.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest

Severe repression marked the early years of the regime, as Franco sought to impose absolute political control and to institutionalize the Nationalist victory in the Civil War. The schisms that had preceded and precipitated the war were maintained as the vanquished were excluded from political participation. Franco restricted individual liberties and suppressed challenges to his authority. The regime imposed prison terms for "revolutionary activity," and executions were carried out through 1944, albeit at a decreasing rate. These repressive measures engendered an atmosphere of fear. In addition, the traumatic effect of years of internecine violence, widespread deprivations, suffering, and disillusionment had left most of the Spanish population acquiescent, willing to accept any system that could restore peace and stability.

During the first phase of the regime, the military played a major role. The state of martial law that was declared in July 1936 remained in effect until 1948. With the backing of the armed forces, Franco used his extensive powers to invalidate all laws of the Second Republic that offended his political and ethical beliefs. He banned civil marriage, made divorce illegal, and made religious education compulsory in the schools. Publications were subject to prior censorship, and public meetings required official permission. He returned most of the land nationalized under the republic's agrarian program to its original owners. The state destroyed trade unions, confiscating their funds and property. Vertical syndicates replaced the unions.

In 1939 Franco initiated a program of reconstruction based on the concept of economic self-sufficiency or autarchy. The program, aimed at increasing national economic production, favored the established industrial and financial interests at the expense of the lower classes and the agricultural regions. Acute shortages and starvation wages were widespread in the early 1940s, a period which saw the worst inflation in Spain's history. By the end of the decade, Spain's level of economic development was among the lowest in southern Europe. Furthermore, the ostracism that Spain experienced because of Franco's collaboration with the Axis powers during World War II and because of the dictatorial nature of his regime deprived the country of the benefits of the Marshall Plan, which was a major factor in the rebuilding of Europe's postwar economy.

As the 1940s drew to a close, agricultural imbalances, labor unrest, and a growing pressure for industrial development forced the regime to begin to modify its autarchic policies. Spain's need for food, raw materials, energy, and credit made it necessary for the country to establish some link to the international economy. Spain achieved this goal when the United States decided to seek the political and strategic advantages of Spanish friendship in the face of an increasingly aggressive Soviet Union. With the infusion of American capital, Spain's economy revived, and living standards began to improve. There was a degree of economic liberalization, and industrial production increased significantly in the 1950s. Economic liberalization did not result in a relaxation of authoritarian control, however. The regime swiftly repressed workers' demonstrations in the spring of 1951 and student protests in 1956.

The regime's "families" did not agree unanimously on the new economic policies, and there were clashes between the progressive and the reactionary forces. The Falange resisted the opening of the regime to capitalistic influences, while the technocrats of the powerful Catholic pressure group, Opus Dei, de-emphasized the role of the syndicates and favored increased competition as a means of achieving rapid economic growth. The technocrats prevailed, and members of Opus Dei assumed significant posts in Franco's 1957 cabinet. Although Opus Dei did not explicitly support political liberalization, it aspired to economic integration with Europe, which meant that Spain would be exposed to democratic influences.

Measures proposed by these technocrats to curb inflation, to reduce government economic controls, and to bring Spanish economic policies and procedures in line with European standards were incorporated in the Stabilization Plan of 1959. The plan laid the basis for Spain's remarkable economic transformation in the 1960s. During that decade, Spain's industrial production and standard of living increased dramatically.

Rapid economic development had political and social consequences, however. Economic expansion resulted in a larger and better educated middle class than had ever existed in Spain, as well as in a new urban working class. Furthermore, the unprecedented degree of foreign cultural influence had a marked impact on Spanish society. All of these factors contributed to an increasing level of dissatisfaction with the restrictions that Franco had imposed. These restrictions were seen as impediments to further growth and modernization.

The technocrats had hoped that greater economic prosperity would eliminate hostility toward Francoism, but tension between an increasingly dynamic Spanish society and the oppressive regime that governed it resulted in growing domestic opposition throughout the 1960s. The expanding industrial labor force became increasingly militant. Workers organized clandestine commissions, and recurrent strikes and bombings were indications that Franco would not be able to maintain his repressive grip on the labor force indefinitely.

In addition, regional discontent was giving rise to escalating violent protests in the Basque region and in Catalonia. Agitation was also growing among university students who resented the strictures of Franco's regime. There was even opposition among the members of one of Franco's former bastions of support, the clergy. The younger liberal priests in the Catholic Church in Spain had responded with enthusiasm to the Second Vatican Council, which emphasized individual liberties and progressive social policies. The priests were also increasingly vocal in their attacks on the oppressive aspects of Francoism.

The unrest of the mid-1960s did not seriously threaten Spain's stability, however, and Franco--after twenty-five years in power--felt the regime was sufficiently secure and economically booming for a slight loosening of his authoritarian control. The Organic Law of the State, which had been approved by referendum in 1966, provided this modicum of liberalization while it solidified Franco's political system. The Law on Religious Freedom, approved in June 1967, eased restrictions on non-Catholics. In the same year, the regime modified censorship laws, and a considerably wider expression of opinion followed. In July 1969, Franco provided his regime with a greater degree of legitimacy and continuity by naming as his successor a legitimate heir to the throne, Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon.

The closing years of Franco's regime were marked by increasing violence and unrest. The anticipation of the dictator's demise and his increasing incapacity destabilized the country, and there was ongoing conflict between those who sought to liberalize the regime in order to secure its survival and those of the bunker mentality who resisted reforms. As a recession in the late 1960s overtook rapid economic expansion, labor agitation heightened. An unprecedented wave of strikes and increasing rebellion in the universities moved Franco to proclaim a state of exception throughout Spain in the early months of 1969. Freedom of expression and assembly were among the constitutional rights that were suspended, and Spain appeared to be returning to the repressive conditions of the 1940s. The revival of dictatorial policies had international repercussions and threatened negotiations with the United States for renewal of an agreement on United States military bases. Franco lifted the state of exception in March 1969, but the government's efforts to achieve legitimacy had been seriously undermined. The remaining years of Franco's rule saw periods of intensified opposition to which the government responded with harshly repressive measures that merely served to broaden and to inflame the resistance, leaving the regime in a state of constant turmoil.

The most virulent opposition to the Franco regime in the late 1960s and the early 1970s came from the revolutionary Basque nationalist group, Basque Fatherland and Freedom (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna--ETA). This extremist group used terror tactics and assassinations to gain recognition of its demands for regional autonomy. The ETA's most daring act was the assassination in December 1973 of Luis Carrero Blanco, whom Franco had appointed as his first prime minister. Carrero Blanco had embodied hard-line Francoism, and he was seen as the one who would carry on the Caudillo's policies. His assassination precipitated the regime's most serious governmental crisis and interrupted the continuity that Franco had planned.

The tensions that had been mounting within the regime since the late 1960s would have made a continuation of Franco's system untenable even without Carrero Blanco's death. Conflicts between the reactionary elements of the regime and those who were willing to open the door to reform had plagued Carrero Blanco. These conflicts continued under his successor, Carlos Arias Navarro. In his first speech to the Cortes on February 12, 1974, the new prime minister promised liberalizing reforms, including the right to form political associations; however, diehard Francoists on the right, who equated any change with chaos, and radical reformers on the left, who were not content with anything less than a total break with the past, condemned Arias Navarro.

Both camps were dissatisfied with the political associations bill that eventually became law in December 1974. The law required that political participation be in accord with the principles of the National Movement and placed associations under its jurisdiction. The law offered no significant departure from Francoism. Would-be reformers saw it as a sham; reactionaries criticized it as the beginning of a limited political party system.

Opposition to the regime mounted on all sides in 1974 and 1975. Labor strikes, in which even actors participated, spread across the country. Universities were in a state of turmoil, as the popular clamor for democracy grew more strident. Terrorist activity reached such a level that the government placed the Basque region under martial law in April 1975. By the time of Franco's death on November 20, 1975, Spain was in a chronic state of crisis.

Franco's legacy had been an unprecedented era of peace and order, undergirded by his authoritarian grip on the country. While forced political stability enabled Spain to share in the remarkable period of economic development experienced by Europe in the 1960s, it suppressed, but did not eliminate, longstanding sources of conflict in Spanish society. The economic and social transformation that Spain experienced in the last decades of Francoist rule complicated these tensions, which were exacerbated as the regime drew to a close. At the time of Franco's death, change appeared inevitable. The form that the change would take and the extent to which it could be controlled were less certain.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Foreign Policy under Franco

The overriding need to strengthen the regime determined foreign policy in the first phase of Franco's rule. Weakened by the devastation of civil war, the country could not afford to become involved in a protracted European conflict. Although Franco was deeply indebted to Germany and to Italy for their decisive contribution to his victory over the Republicans, he declared Spain's neutrality in the opening days of World War II. His sympathies, nevertheless, were openly with the Axis powers; he had, in fact, already joined the Anti-Comintern Pact and had signed a secret treaty of friendship with Germany in March 1939. There was genuine enthusiasm for the fascist cause among important elements of the Franco regime, especially the Falange.

Spain altered its policy of neutrality following the lightning success of Germany's 1940 spring offensive. The German armies appeared invincible, and Franco was eager to assure Spain a voice in the postwar settlement. In June 1940, The Spanish government adopted a policy of nonbelligerency, which permitted German submarines to be provisioned in Spanish ports and German airplanes to use Spanish landing strips. This stance was widely interpreted as foreshadowing Spain's entry on the side of the Axis powers; the German Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, and Franco discussed this move on more than one occasion. The two dictators could never come to terms, however. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 presented Franco with a unique opportunity to participate in the conflict without a declaration of war and to get revenge for the Soviet Union's aid to the Republicans. Franco agreed to a Falangist request for the official formation of a Blue Division of volunteers--which reached a maximum strength of 18,000 men--to fight on the eastern front. Franco still believed that the Axis powers would win the war, and he considered the intervention of Spanish volunteers to be an inexpensive way of assuring recognition of Spain's colonial claims after the war was over.

The war turned in favor of the Allies with the entry of the United States in December 1941 and the Allied landing in Casablanca in November 1942. At that time, Spain replaced its pro-Axis policy with a genuinely neutral stance. Spain withdrew the Blue Division from the eastern front in November 1943, thus ending Franco's major collaboration with Nazi Germany. In May 1944, Spain and the Allies concluded an agreement. The Spanish government agreed to end wolfram shipments to Germany, to close the German consulate in Tangier, and to expel German espionage agents. In exchange for these actions, the Allies were to ship petroleum and other necessary supplies to Spain.

By the end of 1944, Spain had entered into a period of "benevolent neutrality" toward the Allies. Spain allowed Allied aircraft to land inside its borders and permitted Allied intelligence agents to operate in Madrid. In spite of this opportunistic policy shift, Spain was ostracized at the end of the war by the victorious powers. Although the United States president, Harry S. Truman, and the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, successfully resisted Stalin's proposals at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 for Allied intervention against Franco, Spain was denied membership in the United Nations (UN) because its government had come to power with the assistance of the Axis powers and had collaborated with them during the war.

A resolution adopted by the second meeting of the UN General Assembly in December 1946 expressed the most severe postwar censure of the Franco regime. According to this resolution, Spain would be banned from the UN and would not be allowed to participate in any of its specialized agencies, as long as Franco remained in power. Franco did not appear seriously concerned by this censure, nor by the subsequent exclusion of Spain from the Marshall Plan. In fact, he used the international ostracism to strengthen his hold over the Spanish government. During this period of isolation, the Argentine government of Juan Peron (president, 1946-55) provided Spain with crucial economic support.

Franco was convinced that attacks on his regime were the work of communist forces, and he felt certain that the Western powers would someday recognize Spain's contribution in maintaining its solitary vigil against bolshevism. As events evolved, Spain's anticommunist stance proved to be a significant factor in the United States decision to revise its policy toward Spain in view of the Cold War.

As the United States became increasingly concerned with the Soviet threat following the fall of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade in 1948, and the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, United States policy makers also began to recognize the strategic importance of the Iberian Peninsula; furthermore, they realized that ostracism had failed and that the Franco regime was stronger than ever. The United States government took steps to normalize its political and economic relations with Spain in the years 1948-50. In September 1950, President Truman signed a bill that appropriated US$62.5 million for aid to Spain. In the same year, the United States supported a UN resolution lifting the boycott on Franco's regime and resumed full diplomatic relations with Spain in 1951. As Spain became an increasingly important link in the overall defense system of the United States against the Soviet Union, the period of isolation came to an end.

Two major agreements signed in 1953 strengthened the Franco regime: the Concordat with the Vatican and the Pact of Madrid. The Concordat, signed in August 1953, was to replace the 1851 document that the republic had abrogated. The new agreement provided full church recognition of Franco's government. At the same time, it reaffirmed the confessional nature of the Spanish state; the public practice of other religions was not permitted. The agreement was more favorable to the Vatican than to Franco; it included measures that significantly increased the independence of the church within the Spanish system. The Concordat served, nevertheless, to legitimize the regime in the eyes of many Spaniards, and it was instrumental in strengthening Franco's hold over the country.

The Pact of Madrid, signed shortly after the Concordat, further symbolized the Spanish regime's rehabilitation. It also marked the end of Spanish neutrality. The Pact consisted of three separate, but interdependent, agreements between Spain and the United States. It provided for mutual defense, for military aid to Spain, and for the construction of bases there. The United States was to use these bases for a renewable ten-year period, but the bases remained under Spanish sovereignty. Although the pact did not constitute a full-fledged military alliance, it did commit the United States to support Spain's defense efforts; furthermore, it provided Spain with much-needed economic assistance. During the first ten years of the Pact of Madrid, the United States sent approximately US$1.5 billion in all kinds of aid to Spain.

Two years later, in 1955, the UN approved Spain's membership. In a visit by the United States president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the Spanish capital in 1959, the two generals received warm public welcomes as they toured the city together. The visit further emphasized Franco's acceptance and the end of Spain's ostracism. Franco placed a high value on Spain's relationship with the United States, for the prestige it conferred as well as for strategic reasons. This relationship continued to be a dominant factor in the development of the country's foreign policy.

Spain's European neighbors were less willing than the United States to modify their aversion to Franco's authoritarian rule. The West European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) vetoed efforts to include Spain. Spain's applications for association with the European Community (EC) were also repeatedly rejected. Although a Trade Preference Treaty between Spain and the EC signed in 1970 seemed to herald a thaw in relations, Spain's entry into the EC, continued to be a political issue throughout Franco's lifetime. Spanish membership in the Community, considered by Spanish economists and businessmen as crucial for Spain's economic development, had to await the democratization of the regime.

A more intractable problem than Spain's entry into the EC was the fate of Gibraltar, a sore point in Anglo-Spanish relations since 1713, when Spain ceded the area to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. The question of sovereignty, which had been dormant during the years of the Second Republic, revived in the 1960s and jeopardized otherwise friendly relations between Britain and Spain. Spain has never relinquished its claim to Gibraltar, while the British have maintained that the inhabitants of the area should determine Gibraltar's fate. The heterogeneous population of Gibraltar enjoyed local democratic self-government and an increasingly higher standard of living than that prevailing in Spain; therefore it was not a surprise when they voted almost unanimously in a referendum held in 1967 to remain under British rule. The UN repeatedly condemned the "colonial situation" and demanded--to no avail--its termination. In 1969 Spain took steps to seal off Gibraltar from the mainland and to accelerate the economic development program for the area surrounding it, known as Campo de Gibraltar. The situation continued in stalemate throughout the remainder of the Franco regime.

Franco may have been frustrated with the problem of Gibraltar, but he was optimistic about his potential for maintaining a powerful position for Spain in North Africa. As a former commanding officer of Spanish colonial garrisons in Morocco, Franco had developed close ties to the area, and during the postwar period, he placed great emphasis on maintaining Spain's position in the Arab world. Appealing to historical, cultural, and political ties, Franco endeavored to act as self- appointed protector of Arab interests and to portray Spain as an essential bridge, or mediator, between Europe and the Arab countries.

Despite the regime's position as a colonial power in northwest Africa, relations between Spain and the Arab countries became closer in the late 1940s, in part because of Spain's nonrecognition of Israel. A visit by Spain's foreign minister to the Middle East resulted in a variety of economic and cultural agreements, and the Arab states assumed a benevolent attitude toward Spain's position in Morocco. Nevertheless, France's decision to withdraw from Morocco in early 1956, following the successful struggle waged by Moroccan nationalists against French control, left little prospect of Spain's retaining its zone. (In the spring of the same year, France relinquishied the protectorate.)

In the following decades, Spain's position in North Africa eroded further. A long series of conflicts with Morocco resulted in the abandonment of much of Spain's colonial territory in the 1960s. When Morocco's Mohammed V made it clear in 1958 that he had designs on the Spanish Sahara, Spain opposed any change of status for the area. In 1975, however, Spain reversed its policy and declared its readiness to grant full independence to the Spanish Sahara under UN supervision. Following the march of 300,000 unarmed Moroccans into the territory in November 1975, Spain agreed to cede the Spanish Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania. At the time of Franco's death, Spain's only remaining presence in North Africa consisted of the Spanish-inhabited enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the small garrison spot called Penon de Velez de la Gomera, all on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - THE POST-FRANCO ERA

Transition to Democracy

The democratization that Franco's chosen heir, Juan Carlos, and his collaborators peacefully and legally brought to Spain over a three-year period was unprecedented. Never before had a dictatorial regime been transformed into a pluralistic, parliamentary democracy without civil war, revolutionary overthrow, or defeat by a foreign power. The transition is all the more remarkable because the institutional mechanisms designed to maintain Franco's authoritarian system made it possible to legislate a democratic constitutional monarchy into existence.

When Prince Juan Carlos took the oath as king of Spain on November 22, 1975, there was little reason to foresee that he would be the architect of such a dramatic transformation. Franco had hand-picked Juan Carlos and had overseen his education. He was considered an enigma, having publicly sworn loyalty to the principles of Franco's National Movement while privately giving vague indications of sympathy for democratic institutions. More was known of his athletic skills than of his political opinions, and observers predicted that he would be known as "Juan the Brief."

Juan Carlos confirmed Arias Navarro's continuation in office as prime minister, disappointing those who were hoping for liberal reforms. Arias Navarro had served as minister of the interior under Carrero Blanco, and he was a loyal Francoist. His policy speech of January 28, 1976, was vague--devoid of concrete plans for political reform. The hopes and expectations aroused by the long-awaited demise of Franco were frustrated in the initial months of the monarchy, and a wave of demonstrations, industrial strikes, and terrorist activity challenged the country's stability. The government responded with repressive measures to restore law and order. These measures inflamed and united the liberal opposition. At the same time, the cautious reforms that the Arias Navarro government proposed met with hostile reaction from orthodox Francoists, who pledged resistance to any form of change.

It was in this volatile atmosphere that Juan Carlos, increasingly dissatisfied with the prime minister's ability (or willingness) to handle the immobilists as well as with his skill in dealing with the opposition, asked for Arias Navarro's resignation. Arias Navarro submitted his resignation on July 1, 1976. Proponents of reform were both surprised and disappointed when the king chose, as Arias Navarro's successor, Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez, who had served under Franco and who had been designated secretary general of the National Movement in the first government of the monarchy. The new prime minister's Francoist links made it appear unlikely that he would promote major evolutionary change in Spain, but it was these links with the political establishment that made it possible for him to maneuver within the existing institutions to bring about the reforms that Juan Carlos desired.

Throughout the rapid democratization that followed the appointment of Suarez, the collaboration between the king and his prime minister was crucial in assuaging opposition from both the immobilists of the old regime and those who agitated for a more radical break with the past. Whereas Suarez's political expertise and pragmatic approach enabled him to manipulate the bureaucratic machinery, Juan Carlos's ability to maintain the allegiance of the armed forces made a peaceful transition to democracy possible during these precarious months.

In July 1976, the government declared a partial amnesty that freed approximately 400 political prisoners. On September 10, Suarez announced a program of political reform, calling for a bicameral legislature based on universal suffrage. With skillful maneuvering, he was able to persuade members of the Cortes to approve the law, thereby voting their own corporatist institution out of existence, in November. The reforms were then submitted to a national referendum in December 1976, in accordance with Franco's 1945 Law on Referenda. The Spanish people voted overwhelmingly in favor of reform: about 94 percent of the voters (78 percent of the electorate took part in the referendum) gave their approval. The results of the referendum strengthened the position of the Suarez government and of the king and represented a vindication for those who favored reform from above rather than revolution.

In the first six months of 1977, significant reforms were enacted in rapid succession. There were further pardons for political prisoners in March; independent trade unions replaced vertical and labor syndicates; and the right to strike was restored. In April the National Movement was disbanded.

Suarez and the king began to prepare the Spanish people for the first free elections--to be held on June 15, 1977--since the Civil War. The legalization of political parties began in February, and an electoral law outlining the rules for electoral competition was negotiated with opposition political forces and went into effect in March. The government adopted the d'Hondt system of proportional representation, which favored the formation of large parties or coalitions.

A major crisis appeared to be in the offing over the issue of legalizing the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de Espana--PCE). Parties of the left and the center-left demanded legal recognition, refusing to participate in the elections otherwise. Suarez feared a strong reaction from military leaders, however, if such a step were taken. Members of the armed forces had been dedicated to the suppression of Marxism since the time of the Civil War; moreover, Suarez had assured them the previous September that the PCE would never be legalized.

In a bold but necessary move, Suarez legalized the PCE on April 9, 1977. Military leaders were upset by the decision and publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the measure, but they grudgingly accepted it out of patriotism. Juan Carlos's close relations with senior military officers were a factor in defusing a potentially explosive state of affairs. His earlier efforts to replace ultraconservative commanders of the armed forces with more liberal ones also benefited him when he took this controversial step. The moderation that the communists exercised in accepting the monarchy in spite of their avowed republicanism also helped to normalize the political situation.

As the country prepared for elections, a large number of diverse political parties began to form. Only a few of these parties gained parliamentary representation following the June 15, 1977, elections, however, and none achieved an absolute majority. The Union of the Democratic Center (Union de Centro Democratico--UCD), a centrist coalition of several groups, including Francoist reformists and moderate opposition democrats, led by Suarez, emerged from the election as the largest party, winning 34.6 percent of the vote.

The leading opposition party was the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE), which received 29.3 percent of the vote. Having been in existence since 1879, the PSOE was Spain's oldest political party. A group of dynamic young activists, led by a Seville lawyer, Felipe Gonzalez Marquez, had taken control of the party from the exiles in 1972, and their revolutionary idealism, combined with pragmatic policies, enabled the PSOE to appeal to a broader spectrum of the electorate. Both the neo-Francoist right, embodied in the Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular--AP), and the PCE were disappointed with the election results, which gave them each less than 10 percent of the popular vote. Catalan and Basque regional parties accounted for most of the remaining votes.

The election results were a victory for both moderation and the desire for change. They boded well for the development of democracy in Spain. The domination of Spain's party system by two relatively moderate political groups marked an end to the polarization that had plagued the country since the days of the Second Republic. The political skill of Suarez, the courage and determination of Juan Carlos, and the willingness of opposition leaders to sacrifice their hopes for more radical social change to the more immediate goal of securing political democracy helped to end the polarization. The deferral of these hopes led to eventual disenchantment with the Suarez government, but in 1977 it was a key factor in the peaceful transition to democracy.

A formidable array of problems, including a growing economic crisis, Basque terrorism, and the threat of military subversion, confronted the new Suarez government. Long-range solutions could not be devised until after the new constitution had been approved, but in the interim, the socioeconomic difficulties had to be faced. It was apparent that austerity measures would have to be taken, and Suarez knew he needed to gain support for a national economic recovery program. This was achieved in October 1977 in the Moncloa Pacts, named for the prime minister's official residence where leaders of Spain's major political parties met and agreed to share the costs of, and the responsibility for, economic reforms. The parties of the left were promised an increase in unemployment benefits, the creation of new jobs, and other reforms; in return they agreed to further tax increases, credit restrictions, reductions in public expenditures, and a 20 percent ceiling on wage increases.

The new government set forth a provisional solution to demands for regional autonomy. Preautonomy decrees were issued for Catalonia in September and for three of the Basque provinces in December, 1977. The significance of these decrees was primarily symbolic, but the decrees helped to avoid potentially disruptive conflict for the time being by recognizing the distinctive political character of the regions and by promising autonomy when the constitution was ratified. The regional issue nevertheless continued to be the government's most intractable problem, and it became even more complicated as autonomist demands proliferated throughout the country. During the early months of the Suarez government, there were disturbing indications that the army's toleration of political pluralism was limited. Military unrest also boded ill for the regime's future stability.

The major task facing the government during this transitional period was the drafting of a new constitution. Since previous constitutions had failed in Spain because they had usually been imposed by one particular group and were not the expression of the popular will, it was imperative that the new constitution be based on consensus. To this end, the Constitutional Committee of the Cortes in August 1977 elected a parliamentary commission representing all the major national parties and the more important regional ones. This group began its deliberations in an atmosphere of compromise and cooperation. Although members of the group disagreed over issues of education, abortion, lock-outs, and regionalism, they made steady progress. The Cortes passed the document they produced--with amendments--in October 1978.

The new 1978 Constitution is long and detailed, because of its framers' desire to gain acceptance for the document by including something for everyone. It proclaims Spain to be a parliamentary monarchy and guarantees its citizens equality before the law and a full range of individual liberties, including religious freedom. While recognizing the autonomy of the regions, it stresses the indivisibility of the Spanish state. The Constitution was submitted to popular referendum on December 6, 1978, and it was approved by 87.8 of the 67.7 percent of the eligible voters who went to the polls.

After the king had signed the new Constitution, Suarez dissolved the Cortes and called another general election for March. It was widely predicted that the results would show an erosion of support for Suarez and the UCD (which had begun to show signs of fragmentation) and a gain for the PSOE. The PSOE was experiencing its own internal crisis, however. The party's official definition of itself as Marxist hampered Gonzalez's efforts to project an image of moderation and statesmanship. At the same time, the party's more radical members were increasingly resentful of Gonzalez's ideological moderation. Contrary to expectations, the PSOE did not improve its position when Spaniards went to the polls on March 1, 1979. The election results were not significantly different from those of 1977, and they were seen as a reaffirmation and a consolidation of the basic power structure.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Disenchantment with UCD Leadership

Political change was under way. The UCD was a coalition that encompassed a wide range of frequently incompatible political aspirations. Internal conflict had been muted in the interest of maintaining party unity in order to protect the transition to democracy. When the 1979 elections appeared to affirm this transition, the centrifugal tendencies broke loose. In the succeeding months, the center-right UCD moved farther to the right, and its more conservative members were increasingly critical of Suarez's compromises with the PSOE opposition on political and economic issues. At the same time, large segments of the population were frustrated that Suarez did not produce a more thorough reform program to eliminate the vestiges of authoritarian institutions and practices.

Suarez's failure to deal decisively with the regional problem further eroded his popularity. Repressive police measures met increasingly virulent outbreaks of Basque terrorism, and the ongoing spiral of repression and terror contributed to a growing impression that the government was incompetent. The mounting violence further exacerbated Suarez's relations with the military, which were already strained because of his legalization of the PCE. Army leaders, who had only grudgingly accepted political reforms out of loyalty to Juan Carlos, grew increasingly hostile to the democratic regime as ETA terrorism intensified. A coup plot had been uncovered in the fall of 1978, and the possibility of military subversion continued to be a threat.

As discontent with his leadership grew, Suarez realized that he had lost his effectiveness, and on January 29, 1981, he announced his resignation as prime minister. The king appointed conservative centrist Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo to replace him. Before the new prime minister could be confirmed, a group of Civil Guards, led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina, marched onto the floor of the Cortes and held the representatives hostage in an attempted coup. The plan of the rebellious military leaders was to set up an authoritarian monarchy under the protection of the armed forces. That the coup failed was primarily due to the decisive action of Juan Carlos, who ordered the conspirators to desist and persuaded other military officers to back him in defending the Constitution. Juan Carlos then appeared on television and reassured the Spanish people of his commitment to democracy. The foiled coup was over by the next day, but it demonstrated the fragility of Spain's democracy and the importance of Juan Carlos to its continued survival. On February 27, more than 3 million people demonstrated in favor of democracy in the capital and elsewhere throughout Spain, showing the extent of popular support for democratic government.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Growth of the PSOE

In the immediate aftermath of the coup, the various sectors within the UCD closed ranks briefly around their new prime minister, Calvo Sotelo, but internal cleavages prevented the formation of a coherent centrist party. Clashes between the moderate and the rightist elements within the UCD, particularly over the divorce bill, resulted in resignations of dissenting groups and the formation of new splinter parties and coalitions. These developments in turn led to a series of election defeats in 1981 and 1982, and by the time a general election was called in August for October 1982, the UCD's representation in the Cortes was down by one-third.

As the UCD continued to disintegrate, the PSOE gained strength; it was considered more likely than the increasingly conservative UCD to bring about the sweeping social and economic reforms that the Spanish people desired. Moreover, party leader Gonzalez had been successful in his efforts to direct the PSOE toward a more centrist-left position, as seen in his successful persuasion of PSOE delegates in 1979 to drop the term "Marxist" from the party's definition of itself. The PSOE was thereby able to project an image of greater moderation and reliability, and it became a viable governmental alternative. The PSOE also benefited from the decline of the PCE. The heavy-handed management style of PCE leader Santiago Carrillo had aggravated the dissension in the party over whether to follow a more revolutionary line or to adopt more moderate policies. As was the case with the UCD, internecine disputes within the PCE resulted in defections from the party. With the PCE apparently on the point of collapse, the PSOE became the only feasible option for left-wing voters.

When Spaniards went to the polls in record numbers in October 1982, they gave a sweeping victory to the PSOE, which received the largest plurality (48.4 percent) in the post-1977 period. The party enlarged its share of the 350 seats in the Chamber of Deputies to 202, while the UCD, with only 6.8 percent of the vote, won only 11 seats. The conservative AP took on the role of opposition party. The most significant implication of the October elections for the future of democracy in Spain was the transfer of power from one party to another without military intervention or bloodshed. The transition to democracy appeared to be complete.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain's political system underwent dramatic transformations after the death of Franco, but there was nevertheless some degree of continuity in Spanish foreign policy. The return of Gibraltar to Spanish sovereignty continued to be a foreign policy goal, as did greater integration of Spain into Western Europe. In spite of frequent ongoing negotiations, neither of these goals had been accomplished by the time Gonzalez came to power in 1982. Foreign policy makers also endeavored to maintain an influential role for Spain in its relations with Latin American nations.

Spanish opinion was more ambivalent with regard to membership in NATO and relations with the United States, although defense agreements, allowing the United States to continue using its naval and air bases in Spain, were signed periodically. When Spain joined NATO in May 1982, under Calvo Sotelo's government, the PSOE leadership strongly opposed such a commitment and called for withdrawal from the Alliance. One of Gonzalez's campaign promises was a national referendum on Spain's NATO membership. In 1982 the role the new Socialist government envisioned for Spain in the West's economic, political, and security arrangements remained to be seen.

HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Geography

Spanish territory comprises nearly five-sixths of the Iberian Peninsula, which the nation shares with Portugal, the micro-state of Andorra, and the British possession of Gibraltar. Spanish territory also includes two sets of islands--the Balearic Islands (Spanish, Islas Baleares) in the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands (Spanish, Canarias) in the Atlantic Ocean--and two city enclaves in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla. Peninsular Spain, covering an area of 492,503 square kilometers, consists of a central plateau known as the Meseta Central, which is enclosed by high mountains on its north, south, east, and part of its western sides. The area that is predominantly plateau also encompasses several mountain systems that are lower than the peripheral mountains. Although Spain thus has physical characteristics that make it, to some extent, a natural geographic unit, there are also internal geographic features that tend to compartmentalize the country.

The topographical characteristics also generate a variety of climatic regimes throughout the country. By far the greatest part of the country, however, experiences a continental climate of hot, dry summers and rather harsh, cold winters. Where these conditions prevail, the soils have eroded, vegetation is sparse, and agriculture is difficult. Irrigation is practiced where possible, but it is difficult because the flow in most streams is seasonally irregular, and the stream beds of larger rivers are frequently much lower than the adjacent terrain.

<"30.htm">External Boundaries and Landform Regions
<"31.htm">Rivers
<"32.htm">Climate

Spain

Spain - External Boundaries and Landform Regions

Most of Spain's boundary is water: the Mediterranean Sea on the south and east from Gibraltar to the French border; and the Atlantic Ocean on the northwest and southwest--in the south as the Golfo de Cadiz and in the north as the Bay of Biscay. Spain also shares land boundaries with France and Andorra along the Pyrenees in the northeast, with Portugal on the west, and with the small British possession of Gibraltar at the southern tip. Although the affiliation of Gibraltar continued to be a contentious issue between Spain and Britain in the late 1980s, there were no other disputes over land boundaries, and no other country claimed the insular provinces of the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands.

The majority of Spain's peninsular landmass consists of the Meseta Central, a highland plateau rimmed and dissected by mountain ranges. Other landforms include narrow coastal plains and some lowland river valleys, the most prominent of which is the Andalusian Plain in the southwest. The country can be divided into ten natural regions or subregions: the dominant Meseta Central, the Cordillera Cantabrica and the northwest region, the Iberico region, the Pyrenees, the Penibetico region in the southeast, the Andalusian Plain, the Ebro Basin, the coastal plains, the Balearic Islands, and the Canary Islands. These are commonly grouped into four types: the Meseta Central and associated mountains, other mountainous regions, lowland regions, and islands.

The Meseta Central and Associated Mountains

The Meseta Central, a vast plateau in the heart of peninsular Spain, has elevations that range from 610 to 760 meters. Rimmed by mountains, the Meseta Central slopes gently to the west and to the series of rivers that form some of the border with Portugal. The Sistema Central, described as the "dorsal spine" of the Meseta Central, divides the Meseta into northern and southern subregions, the former higher in elevation and smaller in area than the latter. The Sistema Central rims the capital city of Madrid with peaks that rise to 2,400 meters north of the city and to lower elevations south of it. West of Madrid, the Sistema Central shows its highest peak of almost 2,600 meters. The mountains of the Sistema Central, which continue westward into Portugal, display some glacial features; the highest of the peaks are snow-capped for most of the year. Despite their height, however, the mountain system does not create a major barrier between the northern and the southern portions of the Meseta Central because several passes permit road and railroad transportation to the northwest and the northeast.

The southern portion of the Meseta is further divided by twin mountain ranges, the Montes de Toledo running to the east and the Sierra de Guadalupe, to the west. Their peaks do not rise much higher than 1,500 meters. With many easy passes, including those that connect the Meseta with the Andalusian Plain, the Montes de Toledo and the Sierra de Guadalupe do not present an obstacle to transportation and communication. The two mountain ranges are separated from the Sistema Central to the north by the Tagus River.

The mountain regions that rim the Meseta Central and are associated with it are the Sierra Morena, the Cordillera Cantabrica, and the Sistema Iberico. Forming the southern edge of the Meseta Central, the Sierra Morena merges in the east with the southern extension of the Sistema Iberico and reaches westward along the northern edge of the Rio Guadalquivir valley to join the mountains in southern Portugal. The massif of the Sierra Morena extends northward to the Rio Guadiana, which separates it from the Sistema Central. Despite their relatively low elevations, seldom surpassing 1,300 meters, the mountains of the Sierra Morena are rugged.

The Cordillera Cantabrica, a limestone formation, runs parallel to, and close to, the northern coast near the Bay of Biscay. Its highest points are the Picos de Europa, surpassing 2,500 meters. The Cordillera Cantabrica extends 182 kilometers and abruptly drops 1,500 meters some 30 kilometers from the coast. To the west lie the hills of the northwest region.

The Sistema Iberico extends from the Cordillera Cantabrica southeastward and, close to the Mediterranean, spreads out from the Rio Ebro to the Rio Jucar. The barren, rugged slopes of this mountain range cover an area of close to 21,000 square kilometers. The mountains exceed 2,000 meters in their northern region and reach a maximum height of over 2,300 meters east of the headwaters of the Rio Duero. The extremely steep mountain slopes in this range are often cut by deep, narrow gorges.

Other Mountainous Regions

External to the Meseta Central lie the Pyrenees in the northeast and the Sistema Penibetico in the southeast. The Pyrenees, extending from the eastern edge of the Cordillera Cantabrica to the Mediterranean Sea, form a solid barrier and a natural border between Spain and both France and Andorra that, throughout history, has effectively isolated the countries from each other. Passage is easy in the relatively low terrain at the eastern and western extremes of the mountain range; it is here that international railroads and roadways cross the border. In the central section of the Pyrenees, however, passage is difficult. In several places, peaks rise above 3,000 meters; the highest, Pico de Aneto, surpasses 3,400 meters.

The Sistema Penibetico extends northeast from the southern tip of Spain, running parallel to the coast until it merges with the southern extension of the Sistema Iberico near the Rio Jucar and with the eastern extension of the Sierra Morena. The Sierra Nevada, part of the Sistema Penibetico south of Granada, includes the highest mountain on the peninsula, Mulhacen, which rises to 3,430 meters. Other peaks in the range also surpass 3,000 meters.

Lowland Regions

The major lowland regions are the Andalusian Plain in the southwest, the Ebro Basin in the northeast, and the coastal plains. The Andalusian Plain is essentially a wide river valley through which the Rio Guadalquivir flows. The river broadens out along its course, reaching its widest point at the Golfo de Cadiz. The Andalusian Plain is bounded on the north by the Sierra Morena and on the south by the Sistema Penibetico; it narrows to an apex in the east where these two mountain chains meet. The Ebro Basin is formed by the Rio Ebro valley, contained by mountains on three sides--the Sistema Iberico to the south and west, the Pyrenees to the north and east, and their coastal extensions paralleling the shore to the east. Minor low-lying river valleys close to the Portuguese border are located on the Tagus and the Rio Guadiana.

The coastal plains regions are narrow strips between the coastal mountains and the seas. They are broadest along the Golfo de Cadiz, where the coastal plain adjoins the Andalusian Plain, and along the southern and central eastern coasts. The narrowest coastal plain runs along the Bay of Biscay, where the Cordillera Cantabrica ends close to shore.

The Islands

The remaining regions of Spain are the Balearic and the Canary Islands, the former located in the Mediterranean Sea and the latter in the Atlantic Ocean. The Balearic Islands, encompassing a total area of 5,000 square kilometers, lie 80 kilometers off Spain's central eastern coast. The mountains that rise up above the Mediterranean Sea to form these islands are an extension of the Sistema Penibetico. The archipelago's highest points, which reach 1,400 meters, are in northwestern Majorca, close to the coast. The central portion of Majorca is a plain, bounded on the east and the southeast by broken hills.

The Canary Islands, ninety kilometers off the west coast of Africa, are of volcanic origin. The large central islands, <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Gran-Canaria.htm"> Gran Canaria and Tenerife, have the highest peaks; on Gran Canaria they rise to 1,950 meters and on Tenerife, to 3,700 meters.

Spain

Spain - Rivers

Of the roughly 1,800 rivers and streams in Spain, only the Tagus is more than 960 kilometers long; all but 90 extend less than 96 kilometers. These shorter rivers carry small volumes of water on an irregular basis, and they have seasonally dry river beds; however, when they do flow, they often are swift and torrential. Most major rivers rise in the mountains rimming or dissecting the Meseta Central and flow westward across the plateau through Portugal to empty into the Atlantic Ocean. One significant exception is the Rio Ebro, which flows eastward to the Mediterranean. Rivers in the extreme northwest and in the narrow northern coastal plain drain directly into the Atlantic Ocean. The northwestern coastline is also truncated by rias, waterbodies similar to fjords.

The major rivers flowing westward through the Meseta Central include the Rio Duero, the Tagus, the Rio Guadiana, and the Rio Guadalquivir. The Rio Guadalquivir is one of the most significant rivers in Spain because it irrigates a fertile valley, thus creating a rich agricultural area, and because it is navigable inland, making Seville the only inland river port for ocean-going traffic in Spain. The major river in the northwest region is the Rio Mino.

Spain

Spain - Climate

Peninsular Spain experiences three climatic types: continental, maritime, and Mediterranean. The locally generated continental climate covers the majority of peninsular Spain, influencing the Meseta Central, the adjoining mountains to the east and the south, and the Ebro Basin. A continental climate is characterized by wide diurnal and seasonal variations in temperature and by low, irregular rainfall with high rates of evaporation that leave the land arid. Annual rainfall generally is thirty to sixty-four centimeters; most of the Meseta region receives about fifty centimeters. The northern Meseta, the Sistema Central, and the Ebro Basin have two rainy seasons, one in spring (April-June) and the other in autumn (OctoberNovember ), with late spring being the wettest time of the year. In the southern Meseta, also, the wet seasons are spring and autumn, but the spring one is earlier (March), and autumn is the wetter season. Even during the wet seasons, rain is irregular and unreliable. Continental winters are cold, with strong winds and high humidity, despite the low precipitation. Except for mountain areas, the northern foothills of the Sistema Iberico are the coldest area, and frost is common. Summers are warm and cloudless, producing average daytime temperatures that reach 21� C in the northern Meseta and 24 to 27� C in the southern Meseta; nighttime temperatures range from 7 to 10 C. The Ebro Basin, at a lower altitude, is extremely hot during the summer, and temperatures can exceed 43 C. Summer humidities are low in the Meseta Central and in the Ebro Basin, except right along the shores of in the Rio Ebro where humidity is high.

A maritime climate prevails in the northern part of the country, from the Pyrenees to the northwest region, characterized by relatively mild winters, warm but not hot summers, and generally abundant rainfall spread out over the year. Temperatures vary only slightly, both on a diurnal and a seasonal basis. The moderating effects of the sea, however, abate in the inland areas, where temperatures are 9 to 18 C more extreme than temperatures on the coast. Distance from the Atlantic Ocean also affects precipitation, and there is less rainfall in the east than in the west. Autumn (October through December) is the wettest season, while July is the driest month. The high humidity and the prevailing off-shore winds make fog and mist common along the northwest coast; this phenomenon is less frequent a short distance inland, however, because the mountains form a barrier keeping out the sea moisture.

The Mediterranean climatic region extends from the Andalusian Plain along the southern and eastern coasts up to the Pyrenees, on the seaward side of the mountain ranges that parallel the coast. Total rainfall in this region is lower than in the rest of Spain, and it is concentrated in the late autumn-winter period. Generally, rainfall is slight, often insufficient, irregular, and unreliable. Temperatures in the Mediterranean region usually are higher in both summer and winter, and diurnal temperature changes are more limited than those of the continental region. Temperatures in January normally average 10 to 13 C in most of the Mediterranean region, and they are 9 C colder in the northeastern coastal area near Barcelona. In winter, temperatures inland in the Andalusian Plain are slightly lower than those on the coasts. Temperatures in July and August average 22 to 27 C on the coast and 29 to 31 C farther inland, with low humidity. The Mediterranean region is marked by Leveche winds--hot, dry, easterly or southeasterly air currents that originate over North Africa. These winds, which sometimes carry fine dust, are most common in spring. A cooler easterly wind, the Levante, funnels between the Sistema Penibetico and the Atlas Mountains of North Africa.

Spain

Spain - The Society

IN THE DECADE After The Death of Francisco Franco y Bahamonde (in power, 1939-75) in 1975, Spain experienced several powerful transformations. The political transition from a rigid dictatorship to an active parliamentary democracy was widely acknowledged as a highly significant event in West European history. Much more subtle, but equally significant in the long run, was Spain's social and economic transition, described as Spain's "economic miracle," which brought a relatively isolated, conservative social order to the threshold of an advanced industrial democracy. In the decades after the 1930's Civil War, Spain still possessed the social structures and values of a traditional, less developed country. By the late 1980s, Spanish society had already taken on most of the principal characteristics of postindustrial Europe, including a declining rate of births and of population growth generally, an erosion of the nuclear family, a drop in the proportion of the work force in agriculture, and changes in the role of women in society.

Changes in Spain's population reflected this transition quite clearly. Falling birth rates and increased life expectancy combined to produce a rapidly aging population that grew at an extremely slow pace. Spain also experienced massive shifts in the location of its people. Between 1951 and 1981, more than 5 million individuals left the poverty of rural and small-town Spain. Many headed for the more prosperous countries of Western Europe, but the more significant flow was from farm and village to Spain's exploding cities, especially Madrid, Barcelona, and Bilbao.

Spain's diverse ethnic and linguistic groups have existed for centuries, and they have presented Spanish governments with severe challenges since the nineteenth century. In the late 1980s, about one citizen in four spoke a mother tongue other than Castilian Spanish (primarily Catalan or one of its variants; the Basque language, Euskera; or Galician), but Castilian continued to be the dominant language throughout the country. Indeed, after nearly 150 years of industrial development and the migration of millions of nonethnic Spaniards to the ethnic homelands, particularly Barcelona and Bilbao, the non-Castilian languages were in danger of disappearing. Although the Franco regime began to liberalize its approach to the minority languages late in the 1960s, the overall effect of the dictatorship on these languages was very nearly disastrous. The 1978 Constitution made possible the establishment of regional autonomous governments with the requisite powers and resources to salvage their respective cultures and to make their languages co-official with Castilian in their own regions. Whether this experiment in regional bilingualism would succeed, however, remained to be seen.

In social values, Spain began to resemble its West European neighbors to the north. The status of women, for example, was one of the most notable of these changes, as women began to figure more prominently in education, politics, and the work force generally. Closely associated with these changes were a number of other social characteristics including a more liberal stance on abortion, contraception, divorce, and the role of the large and extended family. The Roman Catholic Church, long a dominant power in Spanish life, opposed these developments, but as Spain became a more materialistic and more secular society, the church's ability to determine social mores and policies was strikingly eroded.

Spain also underwent major changes in its educational system. In 1970 Spanish law made education free and compulsory through the age of fourteen; the challenge in the 1980s was to provide the resources necessary to fulfill this obligation. Although the schools enrolled essentially all the school-age population and the country's illiteracy rate was a nominal 3 percent, the school system was plagued by serious problems, including a rigid tracking system, a high failure rate, and poorly paid instructors. In 1984 the Socialist government passed the Organic Law on the Right to Education (Ley Organica del Derecho a la Educacion--LODE) in an attempt to integrate into a single system the three school systems: public, private secular, and Roman Catholic. Changes reached the university level as well, as the Law on University Reform (Ley de Reforma Universitaria--LRU) made each public university autonomous, subject only to general rules set down in Madrid.

In the late 1980s, Spain continued to rank at the low end of the list of advanced industrial democracies in terms of social welfare. Its citizens enjoyed the usual range of social welfare benefits, including health coverage, retirement benefits, and unemployment insurance, but coverage was less comprehensive than that in most other West European countries. The retirement system was under increasing pressure because of the aging population. Housing construction just barely managed to keep pace with rapid urbanization in the 1970s, and by the late 1980s the country had to begin to address some of the "quality of life" issues connected with housing. The society ranked high on some indicators of health care, such as physician availability, but there were still residual health problems more reminiscent of the Third World, particularly a high incidence of communicable diseases. There were dramatic gains in reducing the infant mortality rate, but severe problems in the areas of public health, safety, and environmental concerns--industrial accidents and air, water, and noise pollution--were a direct outgrowth of uncontrolled, rapid industrialization.

Spain

Spain - Population

Size and Growth

In mid-1985, Spain's population reached 38.8 million, making it Western Europe's fifth most populous nation. The country's population grew very slowly throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth. In the 1860s, the population increased by only about one-third of one percent annually; by the first decades of the twentieth century, this rate of increase had grown to about 0.7 percent per year. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, population growth rates hovered between 0.8 and 1.2 percent annually. In the postwar years, Spain began to exhibit population growth patterns very similar to those of most other advanced industrial societies. Growth rates were projected to level off, or to decline slightly, through the remainder of the twentieth century; Spain was expected to reach a population of 40 million by 1990 and 42 million by the year 2000. Observers estimated that the country's population would stabilize in the year 2020 at about 46 million.

One significant factor in Spain's population growth has been a declining rate of births. Between 1965 and 1985, Spain experienced a dramatic reduction in its birth rate, from 21 to 13 per thousand, a drop of approximately 38 percent. In 1975, with an estimated base population of about 35.5 million, the country recorded about 675,000 live births; in 1985, with an estimated base population of more than 38 million, Spain had only about 475,000 live births. In other words, ten years after the death of Franco, despite an increase of nearly 3 million in the base population, the country registered more than one-third fewer births.

Part of this change can be attributed to the increase in the percentage of women using contraceptives. Whereas in the 1960s such data were not even reported, by 1984 the World Bank estimated that over half of Spanish women of childbearing age practiced birth control. Demographers have observed, however, that this increased use of contraceptive devices was only the surface reflection of other more significant changes in Spanish society during the period from 1960 to 1985. The economic causes included an economic slump, unemployment, insufficient housing, and the arrival of the consumer society. Also, changes in cultural patterns reflected women's increased access to employment, expanded women's rights, a decline in the number of marriages (between 1974 and 1984, the marriage rate dropped from 7.6 to 5.0 per 1,000), an improved image of couples without children, a decline in the belief that children were the center of the family, increased access to abortion and divorce, and in general a break in the linkage between woman and mother as social roles.

At the same time that the birth rate was dropping sharply, Spain's low death rate also declined slightly, from 8 to 7 per 1,000. By the mid-1980s, life expectancy at birth had reached seventy-seven years, a level equal to or better than that of every other country in Europe except France, and superior to the average of all the world's advanced industrial countries. Male life expectancy increased between 1965 and 1985 from sixty-eight to seventy-four years, while female life expectancy rose from seventy-three to eighty years.

By the early 1980s, Spain, like all advanced industrial countries, had begun to experience the aging of its population. In 1980 a reported 10.6 percent of its population was over 65 years of age, a figure that was only a bare point or two behind the percentages in the United States and the Netherlands. By 1986 the percentage over 65 had climbed to 12.2; officials estimated that by 2001, the percentage over sixty-five would exceed 15. In 1985 children under the age of 14 constituted 25 percent of the population; specialists anticipated that, by the year 2001, this proportion would decline to 18 percent.

Regional Disparities

Spain is more a subcontinent than a country, and its climate, geography, and history produced a state that was little more than a federation of regions until Philip V, a grandson of Louis XIV, brought the centralization of the Bourbon monarchy to the country in the eighteenth century. Modernday Spain contains a number of identifiable regions, each with its own set of cultural, economic, and political characteristics. In many instances, the loyalty of a population is still primarily to its town or region, and only secondarily to the abstract concept of "Spain." Administratively, Spain is organized into seventeen autonomous communities comprising fifty provinces. However, when an autonomous community is made up of only one province, provinccial institutions have been transferred to the autonomous community.

On the map, the Iberian Peninsula resembles a slightly distorted square with the top bent toward the east and spread wide where it joins the rest of Europe. In the center lies the densely populated Spanish capital, Madrid, surrounded by the harsh, sparsely populated Meseta Central. King Philip II made Madrid the capital of Castile (Spanish, Castilla) in the sixteenth century, partly because its remoteness made it an uncontroversial choice. The city, surrounded by a demographic desert, in the late 1980s was still regarded by many Spaniards as an "artificial" capital even though it had long been established as the political center of the country.

Around the periphery of the peninsula are the peoples that have competed with Castilians for centuries over control of Iberia: in the west, the Portuguese (the only group successful in establishing its own state in 1640); in the northwest, the Galicians; along the northern coast of the Bay of Biscay, the Asturians; and, as the coast nears France, the Basques; along the Pyrenees, the Navarrese and the Aragonese; in the northeast, the Catalans; in the east, the Valencians; and in the south, the Andalusians. Although most of these peoples would decline to identify themselves first, foremost, and solely as "Spanish," few of them would choose to secede from Spain. Even among Basques, whose separatist sentiment ran deepest in the late 1980s, those advocating total independence from Spain probably comprised only one-fifth of the ethnic Basque population. Whereas culture provided the centrifugal force, economic ties linked the regions together more closely than an outsider might conclude from their rhetoric.

Spain's seventeen regions, defined by the 1978 Constitution as autonomous communities, vary greatly in size and population, as well as in economic and political weight. For example, Andalusia (Spanish, Andalucia), nearly the size of Portugal, encompasses 17 percent of Spain's land area. The two regions carved out of sparsely populated Castile--Castilla-La Mancha (larger than Ireland) and Castilla y Leon (larger than Austria)--account for 15.6 and 18.7 percent, respectively, of Spain's total area. These three large regions combined account for about 52 percent of the country's total territory. No other autonomous region contains more than 10 percent of the total. The three richest, most densely populated and most heavily industrialized regions--Madrid, Catalonia (Spanish, Cataluna; Catalan, Catalunya), and the Basque Country (Spanish, Pais Vasco; Basque Euskadi)--together account for 9.3 percent of the total. The remaining 40 percent is made up of two medium-sized regions--Aragon (Spanish, Aragon) and Extremadura--each of which holds 8 to 9 percent, and seven much smaller regions that together account for about 20 percent of the national territory. Regional economic disparities between "Rich Spain" and "Poor Spain" were also highly significant, and they continued to shape the country's political debate despite a century of efforts to redistribute the wealth of the country. Imagine a line drawn from about the middle of the north coast, in Asturias, southeastward to Madrid, and then to Valencia. To the north and east of the line lived the people of Rich Spain, sometimes referred to as "Bourgeois Spain," an area already substantially modernized, industrialized, and urbanized, where the transition to an information and services economy was already well under way in the 1980s. To the south and west of the line lay Poor Spain, or "Traditional Spain," where agriculture continued to dominate and where semi-feudal social conditions could still be found. To aggravate this cleavage still further, Rich Spain, with the exception of Madrid, tended to be made up disproportionately of people who felt culturally different from the Castilians and not really "Spanish" at all.

Indicators of economic disparity are stark reminders that not all Spaniards shared in the country's economic miracle. The autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Madrid accounted for half of Spain's gross national product (GNP) in the late 1980s. Income per capita was only 55 percent of the Catalan level in Extremadura, 64 percent in Andalusia, and 70 percent in Galicia. In Galicia, 46 percent of the population still worked on the land; in Extremadura and the two Castilian regions, 30 to 34 percent did so; but in Catalonia and the Basque Country, only 6 percent depended on the land for their livelihood. In Andalusia, unemployment exceeded 30 percent; in Aragon and in Navarre (Spanish, Navarra) it ran between 15 and 20 percent. A 1987 report by Spain's National Statistics Institute revealed that the country's richest autonomous community, Madrid, exceeded its poorest, Extremadura, by wide margins in every economic category. With the national average equal to zero, Madrid's standard of living measured 1.7 while Extremadura scored -2.0; in family income, the values were Madrid 1.0, Extremadura, -2.1; in economic development, Madrid, 1.7, Extremadura, -2.0; and in endowment in physical and human resources, Madrid, 1.4, Extremadura, -1.7.

Migration

The poverty of rural Spain led to a marked shift in population as hundreds of thousands of Spaniards moved out of the poor south and west in search of jobs and a better way of life. Between 1951 and 1981, more than 5 million Spaniards left Poor Spain, first for the prosperous economies of France and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), then for the expanding industrial regions of Spain itself. Nearly 40 percent, or 1.7 million, left Andalusia alone; another million left Castilla y Leon; and slightly fewer than 1 million left CastillaLa Mancha.

By 1970 migrants accounted for about 26 percent of the population in Madrid, 23 percent in Barcelona, and more than 30 percent in the booming Basque province of Alava. In the years after Franco's death, when the economies of some of the industrial areas, especially the Basque region, began to sour, some tens of thousands of these people returned to their provinces of origin. The majority of the migrants of the 1960s and the 1970s, however, were husbands and wives who had moved their families with the idea of staying for a long period, if not permanently. Thus, the great bulk of the migrants stayed on to shape the culture and the politics of their adopted regions. In the long run, this may turn out to be the most significant impact of the Spanish economic miracle on the country's intractable regional disparities.

During the last decade of the Franco era and the first decade of democracy, the population became steadily more urbanized, although Spain was already a fairly urban country even in the 1960s. Between 1965 and 1985, the population living in urban areas rose from 61 to 77 percent of the total, a level slightly higher than the average for the advanced industrial countries. Urbanization intensified during the 1960s and the 1970s, when cities grew at the rate of 2.4 percent annually, but the rate slowed to 1.6 percent during the first half of the 1980s. The mid-decennial census of April 1, 1986, showed that the Madrid area, accounting for 12.5 percent of the total population, continued to dominate the country. The six cities of over half a million--Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Seville, (Spanish, Sevilla), Valencia, Zaragoza--together accounted for approximately 19 percent.

A comparison of population densities among the provinces illustrates dramatically the drain of the rural population toward the major cities. In 1981 Spain's overall population density was 79 persons per square kilometer, about the same as that of Greece or Turkey and far below the average of such heavily urbanized countries as West Germany. Population densities ranged, however, from the practically deserted interior Castilian provinces, like Soria (9 per square kilometer) and Guadalajara (12), to some of the most densely populated territory in Europe, such as Madrid (607 per square kilometer), Barcelona (592 per square kilometer), and Vizcaya (527 per square kilometer). In terms of the autonomous community system, four regions--Madrid (4.9 million people), Catalonia (6.0 million), Valencia (3.8 million), and Andalusia (6.9 million)--held 50 percent of the country's population in 1986. None of the remaining 13 autonomous regions had more than 2.8 million people.

A comparison of regional population distribution changes from 1962 to 1982 shows clearly the effects of urbanization and the transformation of the work force. In this 20-year period, three regions increased their share of the country's population by three percentage points or more: Catalonia (from 13.1 to 16.6), Madrid (from 8.7 to 12.5), and Valencia (from 7.0 to 10.0). Several other regions, notably the Canary Islands and the Basque Country, registered moderate gains of about one percentage point. In contrast, the big losers (declines of three percentage points or more) were Andalusia (19.3 to 16.2) and Castilla y Leon (9.1 to 6.1). Other regions also losing their historical share of the country's population were Castilla-La Mancha, Galicia, and Extremadura. It is clear that during these two decades Spain's population balance shifted dramatically from the poor and rural provinces and regions to the much richer and more urbanized ones. Since the birth rates in the more modernized and more urbanized parts of the country tended to be even lower than the national average (the Spanish birth rate averaged between 14 and 15 per thousand in 1980-85, whereas the Basque Country rate averaged only 12), it is equally clear that this shift in the population balance was due principally to internal migration rather than to changes in birth rates.

Internal migration concentrated primarily on the huge cities of Madrid and Barcelona in the 1960s and the 1970s, but by the 1980s a significant change began to appear in the migration data. An examination of the data for 1983 and 1984--years in which, respectively, 363,000 and 387,000 persons changed residence in Spain--revealed several trends. First, the major losers of population were small towns (of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants each), which sustained a combined net loss of about 10,000 people each year, and large cities (of more than 500,000), which together had a net annual loss of more than 20,000. Second, the major net gains in population were made by cities of between 100,000 and 500,000, which had a net annual increase of more than 20,000. Third, all the other town or city size categories either had stable populations or experienced only small losses or gains. Thus, while provinces like Barcelona, dominated by a single huge city, actually lost population (more than 15,000 people in each of the years 1983 and 1984), provinces like Seville or Las Palmas, with large cities that had not yet reached the bursting point, experienced significant net in-migration. This reflected a more mature form of population relocation than the simple frantic movement from the farm to Madrid or Barcelona that had characterized the earlier decades of the Spanish economic boom.

Migration was significant not only between regions within the country but abroad as well. The movement of the Spanish population abroad resembled that of many Third World countries that sent large waves of migrants to Western Europe and to North America in the late 1960s and the early 1970s in search of better jobs and living standards and in response to labor shortages in the more advanced industrial countries. Between 1960 and 1985, nearly 1.3 million Spaniards emigrated to other West European countries. More than 500,000 went to Switzerland; more than 400,000, to West Germany; and about 277,000, to France. This flow of migrant workers reached its peak in the 1969 to 1973 period, when 512,000 Spanish citizens--some 40 percent of the entire 25-year total, an average of more than 102,000 each year-- migrated. Following the economic downturn in Europe in the mid-1970s, Spanish migration dwindled to between 10,000 and 20,000 each year, although there was a slight increase in the early 1980s in response to worsening economic conditions in Spain itself. In contrast, the late 1970s saw the return of many Spaniards from abroad, especially from Europe, as economic opportunities for Spaniards declined in Europe and as democracy returned to Spain. In the peak return year, 1975, some 110,000 Spaniards returned from Europe, and Spain's net emigration balance was minus 89,000.

In 1987, according to the government's Institute on Emigration, more than 1.7 million Spanish citizens resided outside the country. About 947,000 lived in the Western Hemisphere, principally in Argentina (374,000), Brazil (118,000), Venezuela (144,000), and the United States (74,000). More than 750,000 Spanish citizens lived in other West European countries, primarily France (321,000), West Germany (154,000), and Switzerland (108,000). Aside from these two heavy concentrations, the only other significant Spanish populations abroad were in Morocco (10,000) and in Australia (22,500).

<"35.htm">Ethnicity and Language

Spain

Spain - ETHNICITY AND LANGUAGE

One of the clearest indicators of Spain's cultural diversity is language. Ethnic group boundaries do not coincide with administrative jurisdictions, so exact figures are impossible to confirm, but observers generally agreed that about one Spanish citizen in four spoke a mother tongue other than Castilian in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, Castilian Spanish was the dominant language throughout the country. Even in the homelands of the other Iberian languages, the native tongue was used primarily for informal communication, and Castilian continued to dominate in most formal settings.

Spain has, besides its Castilian ethnic core, three major peripheral ethnic groups with some claim to an historical existence preceding that of the Spanish state itself. In descending order of size, they are the Catalans, the Galicians, and the Basques. In descending order of the intensity of the pressure they brought to bear on Spanish society and politics in the late 1980s, the Basques came first, followed by the less intransigent and less violent Catalans, and, at a great distance, by the much more conservative and less volatile Galicians. In addition, heavily populated Andalusia had become the center of fragmenting regionalism in the south; and the Gypsies, although few in number, continuing to be a troublesome and depressed cultural minority.

<"36.htm">Government Policies
<"37.htm">The Catalans
<"38.htm">The Galicians
<"39.htm">The Basques
<"40.htm">The Andalusians
<"41.htm">The Gypsies

More about the <"34.htm">Population of Spain.

Spain

Spain - ETHNICITY AND LANGUAGE - Government Policies

Franco's policies toward cultural, ethnic, and linguistic minorities were directed at the suppression of all non-Spanish diversity and at the unification, integration, and homogenization of the country. Until 1975 Spain's policy toward its ethnic minorities was more highly centralized and unifying than that of its neighbor, France, where a liberal democratic framework allowed private-sector initiatives to keep regional cultures and languages alive.

With the restoration of democracy, Spanish elites (many of whom come from one of the peripheral ethnic homelands, especially Catalonia) were much more tolerant of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences. Article 2 of the 1978 Constitution includes this wording: "The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible fatherland of all Spaniards, and it recognizes and guarantees the autonomy of the nationalities and regions that comprise it [the Spanish Nation], and the solidarity among them." It should be pointed out, however, that the word "autonomy" is never defined in the Constitution, leaving a serious ambiguity in Spain's treatment of its ethnic minorities. While requiring that Castilian be the official language throughout the country, the Constitution also recognizes the possibility that other languages may be "co-official" (an ambiguous term that is taken to mean "having co-equal status with Castilian for governmental purposes") in their respective autonomous communities. By 1988 five languages had been accorded such treatment: Catalan, Galician, Euskera (the Basque language), Valencian, and Majorcan.

From the vantage point of the state, the Basque, the Catalan, and the Galician peoples were "nationalities" within the larger and more inclusive Spanish nation. There was only one nation, and its capital was Madrid; ethnic minorities were prohibited from using the term "nation" in reference to themselves. For the Basque or the Catalan nationalist, however, there was no Spanish nation, only a Spanish state made up of a number of ethnic nations, of which theirs was one.

It should be noted that ethno-nationalist sentiment varied greatly within and among Spain's important ethnic minorities, throughout the years. In other words, not all Basques or Catalans felt themselves to be solely Basque or Catalan, and even those who did possessed varying levels of identification with, and commitment to, their ethnic homeland, depending upon the circumstances of the moment. For example, a 1979 study by Goldie Shabad and Richard Gunther revealed that, in the Basque provinces of Alava, Guipuzcoa, and Vizcaya, 28 percent of their respondents identified themselves as "Spanish only" or "more Spanish than Basque," 24 percent said they were "equally Spanish and Basque," 11 percent said they were "more Basque than Spanish," and 37 percent identified themselves as "solely Basque." In the Basque province of Navarre, in contrast, 26 percent said they were "Spanish only"; 52 percent, "Navarrese only"; and 15 percent, "Basque only." In Catalonia, the figures were as follows: "Spanish or more Spanish than Catalan," 38 percent; "equally Catalan and Spanish," 36 percent; "more Catalan than Spanish," 12 percent; and "Catalan only," 15 percent.

Such variation in ethnic identity was related to two factors: the migration of non-ethnics into the ethnic homelands from other parts of Spain, especially in the economic boom years of the 1950s and the 1960s; and the impact of industrialization, modernization, and urbanization on the usage of non-Castilian languages. After several decades of migration of non-ethnics into the Basque and Catalan regions, the native-born population represented between one-half and two-thirds of the total; and in many working-class neighborhoods and large cities, the nonethnics were actually in the majority. Whereas many migrants were able to learn Catalan because of its close similarity to Castilian Spanish, the number of migrants who learned the Basque language was insignificant because Euskera is not an Indo-European language. Moreover, the impact of mass media, urbanization, and other modernizing mass cultural influences gradually weakened the place of the non-Castilian languages. This was especially true in the Basque region, where non-Basque speakers found it pointless to learn a minority language that apparently had little utility in the modern world.

For these reasons, the Basque, the Catalan, and the Galician autonomous community governments placed the highest emphasis on policies to save their respective languages. In each of these regions, the local language was declared co-official along with Castilian Spanish; residents of the regions came to expect that they could communicate with their government in their native tongues when dealing with the courts and the police, and in a wide variety of other contexts in which citizens interacted directly with their state. Trials were conducted in both languages. The regional parliaments and governments, as well as most other institutions of government, were bilingual in theory if not in practice. Each government subsidized native-language schools through the high-school years and supported a television system that broadcasted largely, or, in the Basque case, entirely, in the native language. The Basque autonomous government placed great emphasis on recruiting a native police force made up of bilingual officers able to interact with the local population in the language of their choice.

At the end of the 1980s, it was still too early to assess whether or not such policies could salvage these minority languages. Catalan seemed assured of survival, even if as a subordinate language to Castilian, but Euskera and Galician were spoken by such a small portion of the modern, urbanized population that their fate would probably not be known for another generation. Under the best of circumstances, the representation of such complexity in Spanish society and politics will present a major challenge to the country's political elites and opinion leaders through the 1990s.

Spain

Spain - The Catalans

The four Spanish provinces in the northeast corner of the Iberian Peninsula constitute the principal homeland of the Catalans. The Catalan autonomous community covers about 6.5 percent of Spain's total peninsular land area. The region consists of the provinces of Barcelona, Gerona, Lerida, and Tarragona. Elsewhere in Spain, there were also significant Catalan-speaking populations in the Balearic Islands, along the east coast to the south of <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Valencia.htm">Valencia, and as far west as the eastern part of the Aragonese province of Huesca. Outside Spain, the principal Catalan populations were found in France, at the eastern end of the Pyrenees, and in Andorra.

The population of the Catalan region in 1986 was approximately 6.0 million, of which 4.6 million lived in densely populated Barcelona province. The other three provinces were more sparsely populated. As one of the richest areas of Spain and the first to industrialize, Catalonia attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants, primarily from Andalusia and other poor parts of the country. From 1900 to 1981, the net in-migration into Catalonia was about 2.4 million. In the 1980s, over half of Catalonia's working class, and the vast majority of its unskilled or semi-skilled workers, were cultural outsiders.

Catalan was one of five distinct Romance languages that emerged as the Islamic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula began to ebb. The others were Aragonese, Castilian, Leonese, and Galician. By the late Middle Ages, the kingdoms of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia had joined together in a federation, forging one of the most advanced constitutional systems of the time in Europe.

After the union of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile in 1479, the Spanish crown maintained a loose administrative hold over its component realms. Although it occasionally tried to assert more centralized control, in the case of Catalonia its efforts generally resulted in failure. Nonetheless, attempts by Catalans in the seventeenth century to declare their independence were likewise unsuccessful. In the War of the Spanish Succession, Catalonia sided with the English against the Spanish crown, and the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 opened the way for the conquest of Catalonia by Spanish troops. In September 1714, after a long siege, Barcelona fell, and Catalonia's formal constitutional independence came to an end.

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Catalonia experienced a dramatic resurgence as the focal point of Spain's industrial revolution. There were also a cultural renaissance and a renewed emphasis on the Catalan language as the key to Catalan cultural distinctiveness. Catalan nationalism was put forward by the nascent Catalan bourgeoisie as a solution that coupled political and cultural autonomy with economic integration in the Spanish market. For a brief period during the 1930s, the freedom of the Second Republic gave the Catalans a taste of political autonomy, but the door was shut for forty years by the Franco dictatorship.

There were, in principle, several different criteria that were used to determine who was, or was not, Catalan. One's place of birth, or the place of birth of one's parents, was often used by second-generation migrants to claim Catalan status, but relatively few whose families had been Catalan for generations agreed with these claims. Biological descent was seldom used among either natives or migrants, because Catalans, unlike Basques, did not usually define their ethnic identity in such terms. Sentimental allegiance to Catalonia was important in separating out from the category those native Catalans who no longer felt any identification with their homeland, but preferred to identify themselves as Spanish. Thus, the most significant and powerful indicator of Catalan identity, for both Catalans and migrants alike, was the ability to speak the Catalan language.

According to one estimate, the population (including those outside Spain) speaking Catalan or one of its variants (Valencian or Majorcan) numbered about 6.5 million in the late 1980s. Within the Catalan autonomous community, about 50 percent of the people spoke Catalan as a mother tongue, and another 30 percent could at least understand the language. In Valencia and the Balearic Islands, perhaps as many as 50 to 70 percent of the population spoke one of the variants of Catalan as a mother tongue, although a great majority used the language only in the home.

Spain

Spain - The Galicians

Galicians live in the four Spanish provinces located along the far northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula, but their language zone shades into northern Portugal as well. The autonomous region of Galicia covers about 6 percent of the total peninsular territory of Spain. The four provinces that make up the region are La Coruna, Lugo, Orense, and Pontevedra. The total population of these provinces in 1981 was about 2.8 million. None of the provinces was densely populated. Unlike the Basque and the Catalan regions, which were rich, urbanized, and industrialized, Galicia remained relatively poor, agricultural and dominated by rural and village society, as industry had yet to make its appearance there on a large scale. Moreover, its agricultural sector continued to be among the most backward in Spain, and farm productivity was severely hampered by the tiny size of the individual plots, known as minifundios. The minifundio was the product of an attempt to distribute land parcels in a closed rural system to a growing population by requiring that equal shares be left to each heir. After just a few generations, the land had been subdivided so much that most of the parcels were too small to support a family or to be economically viable. For these reasons, Galicia was a net exporter of population to the rest of Spain. Between 1900 and 1981, the net outflow of people from Galicia was more than 825,000.

Galician nationalism, which appeared as early as the 1840s, recalled a mythical "Golden Age" when the medieval kingdom of Galicia had existed. There had indeed been a king of Galicia who was crowned in 1111; the kingdom was partitioned some years later, however, leaving the northern half hemmed in and isolated while the southern portion expanded southward in the wake of the Moors' withdrawal. This southern part of the realm eventually became Portugal; the northern part fell into disorder. Finally, in 1483 Castilian forces restored order in Galicia, and the kingdom of Castile incorporated the region into its realm. Castilian rule also brought on economic and cultural stagnation that lasted into the nineteenth century.

The emergence of Galician nationalism in the 1840s was principally a literary and cultural phenomenon; its economic and political strength had been sapped by the continuation of its traditional, rural, even anti-industrial social structure. The peasantry was conservative; the bourgeoisie was tiny and was largely non-Galician; the church opposed modernization. The Galician language survived principally as a rural vernacular, but it had no official standing. Despite Galicia's contemporary nationalist movement, which dates from 1931, and the activities of the region's autonomous government, in power since 1981, Galician nationalism continued to be almost silent in comparison with the louder demands of Basques and Catalans in the late 1980s. The use of Galician in political and official forums remained principally a strategy of parties on the left of the political spectrum; more conservative political figures continued to use Castilian either predominantly or exclusively.

About 60 percent of the population of the autonomous community can be identified as ethnic Galician, the great majority of whom retained some use of their language, the remainder retraining, at least in the home. According to one source, some 80 percent of the population could at least understand the language, although it remained primarily a language for the rural and village poor of Galicia and was not much heard in the larger cities. Another source argues that at least 80 percent could speak the language but probably only about 60 percent actually did so on a regular basis, the remainder refraining, at least partly, out of a sense of inferiority. In any case, only an insignificant percentage would be unable to understand the language, given its similarities to Castilian Spanish. Nevertheless, like Catalan, Galician seemed condemned to second-class status while Castilian continued to enjoy the role of the dominant language in official and formal contexts. Galician nationalists were sharply critical of what they termed the "so-called bilingualism policy," because they believed that Galician, unless it were given privileged status vis � vis Castilian, would eventually be overwhelmed by the more popular and more dominant official language.

Spain

Spain - The Basques

The homeland of the Basques, known by Basque nationalists as Euzkadi, occupies the littoral of the Bay of Biscay as it curves north into France. The region extends inland some 150 kilometers, through the juncture of the Pyrenees and the Cordillera Cantabrica, and thence south to the Rio Ebro. The region covers nearly 21,000 square kilometers, of which about 3,000 lie on the French side of the international frontier. The 18,000 square kilometers on the Spanish side constitute about 3.6 percent of Spain's total land area.

About 3 million people lived in this area in the late 1980s. Approximately 300,000 people were on the French side of the border, while the remaining 2.7 million people were concentrated primarily in the two Spanish coastal provinces of Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya and, less densely, in the two inland provinces of #Alava and Navarre. This population lived under two distinct autonomous communities: Basque Country, which incorporated the three smaller provinces, and Navarre, which by itself constituted a "uniprovincial" regional government.

The Basques are among the oldest peoples of Europe. Despite their having been visited by numerous waves of invaders, the Basques reached the tenth century still fairly isolated from the flow of West European history. In the tenth and the eleventh centuries, the rising kingdom of Navarre absorbed most of the rest of the Basque peoples, and it created for the first time a more or less unified Basque political entity. With the kingdom's decline, however, the region fell into disorder, and by the sixteenth century, the Basque provinces had been integrated into the kingdom of Castile. From this time until the nineteenth century, relations between Castile and the Basque provinces were governed by the fueros, local privileges and exemptions by which the Spanish king recognized the special nature of the Basque provinces and even a number of Basque towns. As a result of the centralization of the Spanish state and the Carlist Wars, the fueros had been abolished by the end of the nineteenth century. The Second Republic in the 1930s offered the chance to create a new autonomous Basque regime, but all such efforts were doomed by the Spanish Civil War. After the war, the Franco dictatorship sought--unsuccessfully--to suppress all signs of Basque distinctiveness, especially the use of the language.

Through most of the twentieth century, the thriving Basque economy, centered on the steel and the shipbuilding industries of Vizcaya and the metal-processing shops in Guipuzcoa, attracted thousands of Spaniards who migrated there in search of jobs and a better way of life. Between 1900 and 1980, the number of people moving into the region exceeded those who left by nearly 450,000, the heaviest flow occurring during the decade of the 1960s. In the 1970s, the flow began to reverse itself because of political upheaval and economic decline. Between 1977 and 1984, the net outflow was nearly 51,000. The consequence of this heavy in-migration was a population in the late 1980s that was only marginally ethnic Basque and that in many urban areas was clearly non-Basque in both language and identity. One authoritative study found that only 52 percent of the population had been born in the Basque region of parents also born there, 11 percent had been born in the region of parents born elsewhere, and 35.5 percent had been born outside the region.

The Basque region has been for decades the arena for a clash between an encroaching modern culture and its values (speaking Spanish, identifying with Spain, working in industry, living in a large city) and a native, traditional culture and its values (speaking Euskera, identifying with one's village or province, working on a small farm or in the fishing sector, living on a farm or in a small village). The former population was found concentrated in the larger cities such as Bilbao, while the latter lived in the small fishing villages along the Bay of Biscay or in mountain farmsteads, called caserios, located in the mountains of Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and Navarre. These centers of Basque traditional culture have been in constant decline since the introduction of heavy industry to the region in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and they could well disappear by the end of the twentieth century.

The use of the Basque language has also been in steady decline for centuries, but the erosion has accelerated since the 1950s with the rise in non-Basque migration to the region. A 1984 language census confirmed what unofficial estimates had already observed: that Basque was a weakened minority language, although not yet moribund. Of the 2.1 million people in the Basque Country autonomous region, 23 percent could understand Euskera, 21 percent could speak it, but only 13 percent could read the language and only 10 percent could write it. These data indicate that the Basque language has survived principally as an oral language without much of a written tradition, and that it is conserved not by formal teaching in schools but by informal teaching in the home. Officials in the Basque Country launched a number of important programs, especially in television and education, to restore the language to a level of parity with Castilian Spanish, but the success of these efforts will not be confirmed for at least a generation. Officially, the objective was to make the Basque population bilingual in Spanish and in Basque; but that goal seemed quite remote in the late 1980s.

Spain

Spain - The Andalusians

The Andalusians cannot be considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: an awareness of a common, distant mythological origin, and their own language. Nevertheless, it is clear that they do constitute a culturally distinct people, or region, that has become increasingly important in an industrial and democratic society.

The Andalusians live in Spain's eight southernmost provinces: Almeria, Cadiz, Cordoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaen, <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Malaga.htm">Malaga, and Seville. In 1986 their total population stood at 6.9 million. In general, it had grown more slowly than had the country's total population, and the region continued to be sparsely populated. Since 1960, the region's share of total population had declined, despite birth rates ranging from 20 to 25 per 1,000, about 40 percent higher than the Spanish average. The causes of the depopulation of the region can be found in the distinctive characteristics of its culture and economy: the large, poorly utilized estates and the agro-towns; rural poverty and landlessness; a rigid class structure and sharp class conflict; and emigration to Spain's industrial cities and to other parts of Europe. Most descriptions of Andalusia begin with the landownership system, for the most powerful forces in the region have for centuries been the owners of the large, economically backward estates, called latifundios. These wide expanses of land held by relatively few owners had their origins in landowning patterns that stretch back to Roman times; in grants of land made to the nobility, to the military orders, and to the church during the Reconquest (Reconquista); and in laws of the nineteenth century by which church and common lands were sold in large tracts to the urban middle class. The latifundio system is noted for two regressive characteristics: unproductive use of the land (agricultural production per capita in Andalusia was only 70 percent of that in Spain as a whole during the late 1980s) and unequal and absentee landownership patterns (1 percent of the agricultural population owned more than half of the land; the landed aristocracy made up no more than 0.3 percent of the population). The workers of this land, called jornaleros, were themselves landless; they did not even live on the land. Instead, they resided in what Spaniards refer to as pueblos, but with populations ranging as high as 30,000, these population centers were far too large to be considered "villages" or "towns." Anthropologists have coined the term "agro-towns" to describe such urban areas, because they served almost solely as a habitat for agricultural day-workers and had themselves declined in economic, cultural, and political significance.

This economic and cultural system produced a distinctive outlook, or perspective, that involved class consciousness and class conflicts as well as significant out-migration. In contrast to the much smaller farm towns and villages of northern Spain, where the land was worked by its owners, where parcels were of more nearly equal size, and where class differentiations were softened, class distinctions in the agro-towns of Andalusia stood out with glaring clarity. Devices used in other parts of rural Spain to diffuse class conflict, such as kinship and religious rituals, were of little value here. The families of the landless farmers lived at, or near, the poverty level, and their relations with the landed gentry were marked by conflict, aggression, and hostility. The two main forces that kept Andalusia's rural society from flying apart were external to the region. The first was the coercive power of the state, the political power emanating from Madrid, as exemplified by Spain's rural constabulary, the Civil Guard (Guardia Civil). The second was the safety valve offered by the opportunities to migrate to other parts of Spain, or to other countries in Western Europe. This freedom resulted in the remaining facet of Andalusian culture: the will to leave the region behind. Much of this migration was seasonal; in 1982, for example, 80,000 Spaniards, mostly Andalusians, migrated to France for the wine harvest. Much of the migration, however, consisted of entire families who intended to remain in their new home for long periods, or perhaps forever. This is why Andalusia during the 1960s lost some 14 percent of its population, perhaps the greatest European exodus in peacetime in this century.

Spain

Spain - The Gypsies

The term "Gypsies" is used by outsiders to label an ethnic group the members of which refer to themselves as Rom and speak a language known as Romany. No one knows exactly how many Gypsies there are, either in general or in Spain in particular. Estimates of the Spanish Gypsy population range as low as 50,000 and as high as 450,000, and other estimates place the world Gypsy population at between 3 and 6 million. Correct estimates are made difficult by the nomadic life-style followed by a portion of the group, by their cultural isolation, by the sense of mystery surrounding them and their origins, and by the division of the population into a number of distinctive subgroups.

It is generally accepted that Gypsies migrated out of India into Europe as early as the eleventh century. There are records of their having arrived in Spain as early as 1425 and in Barcelona, in particular, by 1447. At first they were well received and were even accorded official protection by many local authorities. In 1492, however, when official persecution began against Moors and Jews to cleanse the peninsula of non-Christian groups, the Gypsies were included in the list of peoples to be assimilated or driven out. For about 300 years, Gypsies were subject to a number of laws and policies designed to eliminate them from Spain as an identifiable group: Gypsy settlements were broken up and the residents dispersed; Gypsies were required to marry non-Gypsies; they were denied their language and rituals as well as well being excluded from public office and from guild membership. By the time this period had drawn to a close, Gypsies had been driven into a permanently submerged underclass from which they had not escaped in the late 1980s.

Spanish Gypsies are usually divided into two main groups: gitanos and hungaros (for Hungarians). The former, in turn, are divided into subgroups classified by both social class and cultural differences. In the late 1980s, the gitanos lived predominantly in southern and central Spain. Many of them took up a sedentary form of life, working as street vendors or entertainers. Although poor and largely illiterate, they were usually well integrated into Spanish society. The hungaros, however, are Kalderash, one of the divisions of the group from Central Europe (hence the name). They were much poorer than the gitanos and lived an entirely nomadic lifestyle, usually in tents or shacks around the larger cities. They made their living by begging or stealing, and they were much more of a problem for Spanish authorities. Many gitanos denied the hungaros the status of being in their same ethnic group, but outsiders tend to regard them all as basically Gypsies. In any case, whatever common ethnic consciousness they possessed was not sufficient to make them a significant political force.

Under Franco, Gypsies were persecuted and harassed, as indeed they were throughout the areas of Europe controlled by Nazi Germany. In the post-Franco era, however, Spanish government policy has been much more sympathetic toward them, especially in the area of social welfare and social services. Since 1983, for example, the government has operated a special program of compensatory education to promote educational rights for the disadvantaged, including those in Gypsy communities. The challenge will be to devise programs that bring the Gypsy population into the mainstream of the country's economic and political life without eroding the group's distinctive cultural and linguistic heritage.

Spain

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

Spain - SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Spain in the 1980s possessed a socioeconomic class structure typical of countries entering the advanced stage of industrialization. In general terms, society was becoming more differentiated along class, occupational, and professional lines, with an expanding middle class and a decreasing proportion of rural poor. Although Spain had not yet reached the degree of social differentiation seen in other advanced industrial democracies in Western Europe, it was clearly moving in the same direction. As in other areas, however, Spain was modernizing in a distinctly Iberian style, retaining some important social characteristics from an earlier era.

By the mid-1980s, the structure of Spain's economy had come increasingly to resemble that of most other West European countries, as evidenced by changes in the distribution of its work force. Throughout the twentieth century there was a steady decline in the proportion of workers employed in agriculture and other primary sectors (from 60.4 percent of the work force in 1900 to 14.4 percent in 1981); a gradual increase in the proportion employed in the services sector (from 15.1 percent to 40.4); and an increase in the proportion employed in industry and construction, until the 1970s when the percentage leveled off and even declined slightly (13.6 percent in 1900, to 37.4 percent in 1970, then 35.3 percent in 1981). (The residual percentages are accounted for by "other" and "unclassified" economic activities.) Changes were especially dramatic during the fifteen-year period from 1965 to 1980. According to a 1983 study, the Spanish work force consisted of 15 percent in agriculture, 33 percent in industry, 25 percent in non-information-related services, and 27 percent in the information sector (compared with 40 percent in the United States and 30 percent or more in West Germany, in France, and in Britain).

There were, however, worrisome signs that certain key sectors of the work force had not kept pace with the country's transition to advanced industrial status. In 1980 administrative and managerial workers, the key to guiding a complex industrial economy, constituted a tiny portion--only 1.3 percent--of Spain's work force, which put Spain on a par with Uruguay and Brazil. Professional and technical workers, the sector relied upon to provide basic and applied research for a country's industrial base, constituted only 5.9 percent of the work force, which placed Spain on about the same level as Mexico and the Philippines. In both cases, among West European nations, Spain was close to only Greece and Portugal. The rest of Western Europe was still far ahead in these crucial areas. Changes in Spain's economic structure have been reflected in class structure changes as well. By 1970 Spanish sociologist Amando de Miguel had reported that the country's occupation structure was dominated by a growing middle (including upper-middle) class of administrators, service personnel, and clerical workers. On the basis of the 1970 census, de Miguel found that fully 40 percent of Spain's working population was employed in the category of "nonmanual and service workers"; the country's industrial labor force, or blue collar-workers, constituted 35 percent of the work force; the rural workers (including employed farm workers, day workers, and farm owners) accounted for 25 percent (still high by West European standards). The occupational structure differed markedly among Spain's various regions. In the more industrial, urbanized north and northeast (the Basque Country and Catalonia), white-collar service and administrative workers made up about 45 percent of the work force; industrial blue collar workers, about 47 percent; and rural workers, about 8 percent. In the more traditional rural and agrarian south and west of the country (Andalusia and Extremadura), the relative percentages were 35 percent white-collar, 30 percent blue-collar, and 35 percent rural. A decade later, American political scientists Richard Gunther, Giacomo Sani, and Goldie Shabad studied the class implications of the 1979 Spanish elections and discovered, first, that the country's class structure had become more differentiated in the preceding decade, and second, that the upper and middle classes had grown in size, while the urban and rural working classes had contracted. Gunther and his associates found that 12.6 percent of their respondents classified themselves in the highest status group (entrepreneurs, professionals, large landowners, etc.), an increase from 5.2 percent in the de Miguel study. Another 36.3 percent could be classified as upper-middle class (these in technical professions, small businessmen, mid-level public and private employees), up from 15.4 percent in 1970; and 16.3 percent fell within the lower-middle class category (sales and supervisory personnel and small farmers), down from 21.8 percent a decade earlier. Thus, the number included in the general category of middle class rose from about one-third of the work force to about one-half in a decade. As a percentage of the total, blue-collar workers and rural farm workers fell from about 60 percent in 1970 to only 33.3 percent in Gunther's 1979 study.

Later studies, using less precisely differentiated categories, found that many Spaniards continued to classify themselves as working class people regardless of the color of their collar. In one 1979 study, done by American political scientists Peter McDonough and Samuel Barnes and their Spanish colleague Antonio Lopez Pina, 48 percent of their respondents classified themselves as "working class"; 36 percent, as "low-middle"; and 16 percent, as "middle-high." In a 1984 study, these same three researchers reported that self-classified working-class respondents were 55.9 percent of the sample, middle class people were 33 percent, and upper-class subject were 11.1 percent. Allowing for a considerable degree of overlap and ambiguity in answers across surveys, particularly in aggregating the responses for working class and lower-middle class into a single statistic, it still seems clear that Spanish society had become more middle class and less poor over the decade and a half between 1970 and 1985.

Data on class structure from 1984 have been analyzed in a study by Spanish sociologists Salustiano del Campo and Manuel Navarro, who divided the Spanish work force into two broad groups: salaried employees, constituting approximately 68 percent of the work force, and owners, managers and professionals, making up about 31 percent. The first group was further divided into nonmanual and service workers, who accounted for about 34 percent of the work force, and blue-collar workers, who also constituted approximately 34 percent. The second group had the categories of capitalist business class, with about 5 percent of the work force, and the liberal professional class (e.g., attorneys), and self-employed small business owners, merchants and small farmers, who accounted for approximately 27 percent.

Although Spaniards experienced many of the same social and class cleavages that occurred in other advanced industrial societies, they retained a distinctive commitment to greater income equality, an egalitarian value that stands out in comparison with their wealthier and more industrialized neighbors. In a 1985 study, McDonough, Barnes, and Lopez Pina asked their respondents, "Do you think there should be a great deal of difference, some difference, or almost no difference in how much people in different occupations earn?" The proportions of respondents answering "a great difference" were 3 percent from the working class, 4 percent from the middle class, and 7 percent from the upper class, compared with 26 percent, 32 percent and 49 percent from comparable classes in the United States. Thus, McDonough and his colleagues call our attention to "the salient fact [of] the high level of egalitarian/populist expectations in Spain. The pattern is understandable in light of the poverty which for many Spaniards is not a vicarious memory and in view, as well, of the paternalistic legacy of Latin Catholicism. On the one hand, then, economic and social issues are probably not as conflict-ridden as caricatures of Spanish politics imply-- relative to the symbolic-moral issues, for example. On the other hand, the public seems to entertain high expectations about the benefits and social equity to be delivered by the government."

According to data from 1980 and 1981, Spain's household income was distributed in the following pattern: the poorest quintile of the population received 6.9 percent; the second poorest, 12.5; the middle quintile, 17.3; the fourth quintile, 23.2; the richest quintile, 40.0; and the richest decile, 24.5. The ratio between the richest and the poorest quintiles was 5.8:1, a fairly equitable distribution pattern compared with other advanced industrial West European democracies. The Spanish pattern of income distribution did not differ dramatically from that of advanced welfare states like Sweden or Denmark. The crucial difference was, of course, that in those countries there was much more income to distribute. Outside Spain's urban areas, in the small and mid-sized towns where more than a quarter of the country's population still lived, there were two distinctive models of class structure and conflict. In the small villages of Castile and the north, where land was more evenly distributed, and where the land was worked by its owners, social cleavages were much less acute, and class conflict was much less strident. There, the sense of community was reinforced by the still-powerful forces of kinship and religion. Moreover, modernization, principally by raising the salaries of laborers and by diminishing the gap in material possessions between rich and poor, had erased the few class or status differences that had existed previously. As the ownership of automobiles, refrigerators, and television sets spread to practically the entire population, upper-class status became largely meaningless in these small villages.

In the larger agro-towns of the south, however, a totally different picture was found. In Andalusia, land was distributed in a highly unequal way and the land was worked principally by day laborers who owned no land and who seldom even lived on it. In these towns, class structure was very sharply delineated and class conflict was aggressive and often violent. Traditional values of kinship and religion failed to diffuse these conflicts, and the towns and villages were held together by what anthropologist David Gilmore calls the "coercive integration" imposed by external forces, primarily the government in Madrid.

Spain

Spain - SOCIAL VALUES AND ATTITUDES

After the restoration of democracy, the changes in everyday Spanish life were as radical as the political transformation. These changes were even more striking when contrasted with the values and social practices that had prevailed in Spanish society during the Franco years, especially during the 1940s and the early 1950s. In essence, Spanish social values and attitudes were modernized at the same pace, and to the same degree, as the country's class structure, economic institutions, and political framework.

To say that Spanish social values under Franco were conservative would be a great understatement. Both public laws and church regulations enforced a set of social strictures aimed at preserving the traditional role of the family, distant and formal relations between the sexes, and controls over expression in the press, film, and the mass media, as well as over many other important social institutions. By the 1960s, however, social values were changing faster than the law, inevitably creating tension between legal codes and reality. Even the church had begun to move away from its more conservative positions by the latter part of the decade. The government responded haltingly to these changes with some new cabinet appointments and with somewhat softer restrictions on the media. Yet underneath these superficial changes, Spanish society was experiencing wrenching changes as its people came increasingly into contact with the outside world. To some extent, these changes were due to the rural exodus that had uprooted hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and had brought them into new urban social settings. In the 1960s and the early 1970s, however, two other contacts were also important: the flow of European tourists to "sunny Spain" and the migration of Spain's workers to jobs in France, Switzerland, and West Germany.

One of the most powerful influences on Spanish social values has been the country's famous "industry without smokestacks"-- <"69.htm">tourism. In the years before the Civil War, tourists numbered only about one quarter of a million, and it took more than a decade after World War II for them to discover Spain's climate and low prices. When they finally did, the trickle of tourists became a flood. The leading countries sending tourists to Spain were France, Portugal, Britain, and West Germany. Of course tourists brought much more than British pounds or German deutsche marks; they also brought the democratic political and social values of northern Europe.

The other population flow that affected Spanish cultural values involved Spanish workers who returned from having worked in the more industrialized and more liberal countries of Western Europe. The exact number of returning migrants fluctuated greatly from year to year, depending on economic conditions in Spain and in the rest of Europe. The peak period was 1965 to 1969, when more than 550,000 returned; but nearly 750,000 returned during the decade of the 1970s. The return flow ebbed somewhat during the 1980s, when only about 20,000 came back per year. The principal problems encountered by these returning Spaniards were both economic (finding another job) and cultural (what the Spanish refer to as "social reinsertion," or becoming accustomed again to the Spanish ways of doing things). Many of the returnees came back with a small sum of money that they invested in a small business or shop, from which they hoped to advance up the economic ladder. Above all, they brought back with them the cultural habits and tastes of France, West Germany, and Switzerland, contributing thereby to the cultural transformation of post-Franco Spain.

Outsiders who still thought of Spain as socially restrained and conservative were surprised to note the public changes in sexual attitudes in the country since the late 1970s. Once state censorship was relaxed on magazines and films in 1976 and in 1978, the market for pornography flourished. In a country where Playboy was outlawed until 1976, ten years later this and other foreign "adult" magazines were already considered tame and were outsold by domestic magazines. Throughout Spain's large cities, uncensored sex films were readily available in government-licensed theaters, and prostitutes and brothels freely advertised their services in even the most serious press. Despite these attention-getting changes in public attitudes, however, Spanish government policy for some years remained quite distant from social practice in two important areas related to private sexual behavior, contraception and abortion.

During the Franco years, the ban on the sale of contraceptives was complete, at least in theory, even though the introduction of the pill had brought artificial contraception to at least half a million Spanish women by 1975. The ban on the sale of contraceptives was lifted in 1978, but no steps were taken to ensure that they were used safely or effectively. Schools offered no sex education courses, and family planning centers existed only where local authorities were willing to pay for them. The consequence of a loosening of sexual restraints, combined with a high level of ignorance about the technology that could be substituted in their place, was a rise in the number of unwanted pregnancies, which led to the second policy problem--abortion.

Illegal abortions were fairly commonplace in Spain even under the dictatorship. A 1974 government report estimated that there were about 300,000 such abortions each year. Subsequently, the number rose to about 350,000 annually, which gave Spain one of the highest ratios of abortions to live births among advanced industrial countries. Abortion continued to be illegal in Spain until 1985, three years after the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE) came to power on an electoral platform that promised a change. Even so, the law legalized abortions only in certain cases: pregnancy resulting from rape, which must be reported to the authorities prior to the abortion; reasonable probability of a malformed fetus, attested to by two doctors; or to save the mother's life, again in the opinion of two physicians. In the 1980s, this was as far as public opinion would permit the state to go; surveys showed that a clear majority of the electorate remained opposed to abortion on demand.

Perhaps the most significant change in Spanish social values, however, involved the role of women in society, which, in turn, was related to the nature of the family. Spanish society, for centuries, had embraced a code of moral values that established stringent standards of sexual conduct for women (but not for men); restricted the opportunities for professional careers for women, but honored their role as wives and (most important) mothers; and prohibited divorce, contraception, and abortion, but permitted prostitution. After the return of democracy, the change in the status of women was dramatic. One significant indicator was the changing place of women in the work force. In the traditional Spanish world, women rarely entered the job market. By the late 1970s, however, 22 percent of the country's adult women, still somewhat fewer than in Italy and in Ireland, had entered the work force. By 1984 this figure had increased to 33 percent, a level not significantly different from Italy or the Netherlands. Women still made up less than one-third of the total labor force, however, and in some important sectors, such as banking, the figure was closer to one-tenth. A 1977 opinion poll revealed that when asked whether a woman's place was in the home only 22 percent of young people in Spain agreed, compared with 26 percent in Britain, 30 percent in Italy, and 37 percent in France. The principal barrier to women in the work place, however, was not public opinion, but rather such factors as a high unemployment rate and a lack of part-time jobs. In education, women were rapidly achieving parity with men, at least statistically. In 1983, approximately 46 percent of Spain's university enrollment was female, the thirty-first highest percentage in the world, and comparable to most other European countries.

During Franco's years, Spanish law discriminated strongly against married women. Without her husband's approval, referred to as the permiso marital, a wife was prohibited from almost all economic activities, including employment, ownership of property, or even travel away from home. The law also provided for less stringent definitions of such crimes as adultery and desertion for husbands than it did for wives. Significant reforms of this system were begun shortly before Franco's death, and they have continued at a rapid pace since then. The permiso marital was abolished in 1975; laws against adultery were cancelled in 1978; and divorce was legalized in 1981. During the same year, the parts of the civil code that dealt with family finances were also reformed.

During the Franco years, marriages had to be canonical (that is, performed under Roman Catholic law and regulations) if even one of the partners was Catholic, which meant effectively that all marriages in Spain had to be sanctioned by the church. Since the church prohibited divorce, a marriage could be dissolved only through the arduous procedure of annulment, which was available only after a lengthy series of administrative steps and was thus accessible only to the relatively wealthy. These restrictions were probably one of the major reasons for a 1975 survey result showing that 71 percent of Spaniards favored legalizing divorce; however, because the government remained in the hands of conservatives until 1982, progress toward a divorce law was slow and full of conflict. In the summer of 1981, the Congress of Deputies (lower chamber of the Cortes, or Spanish Parliament) finally approved a divorce law with the votes of about thirty Union of the Democratic Center (Union de Centro Democratico--UCD) deputies who defied the instructions of party conservatives. As a consequence, Spain had a divorce law that permitted the termination of a marriage in as little as two years following the legal separation of the partners. Still, it would be an exaggeration to say that the new divorce law opened a floodgate for the termination of marriages. Between the time the law went into effect at the beginning of September 1981, and the end of 1984, only slightly more than 69,000 couples had availed themselves of the option of ending their marriages, and the number declined in both 1983 and 1984. There were already more divorced people than this in Spain in 1981 before the law took effect.

Despite these important gains, observers expected that the gaining of equal rights for women would be a lengthy struggle, waged on many different fronts. It was not until deciding a 1987 case, for example, that Spain's Supreme Court held that a rape victim need not prove that she had fought to defend herself in order to verify the truth of her allegation. Until that important court case, it was generally accepted that a female rape victim, unlike the victims of other crimes, had to show that she had put up "heroic resistance" in order to prove that she had not enticed the rapist or otherwise encouraged him to attack her.

Another important sign of cultural change involved the size and the composition of the family. To begin with, the marriage rate (the number of marriages in proportion to the adult population) has declined steadily since the mid-1970s. After holding steady at 7 per 1,000 or more for over 100 years, the marriage rate declined to about 5 per 1,000 in 1982, a level observed in West Germany and in Italy only a few years earlier. Fewer people were marrying in Spain, and the family structure was changing dramatically as well. In 1970, of the 8.8 million households recorded in the census, 59 percent consisted of small nuclear families of two to five persons, 15 percent were somewhat larger nuclear families that included other relatives as well as guests, and 10.6 percent were households of unrelated individuals who had no nuclear family. Large families of more than three children were only 9 percent of the total. In a 1975 municipal survey that dealt only with families, the following results were registered: couples without children constituted 16 percent of all families; and two-children families made up 34 percent of the total. Although the number of family units increased more than 20 percent between 1970 and 1981, the average size of the family decreased by about 10 percent, from 3.8 persons to 3.5. The typical extended family of traditional societies (three generations of related persons living in the same household) hardly appeared at all in the census data. Clearly, that characteristic of Spanish cultural values was a thing of the past.

Spain

Spain - RELIGION

Spain, it has been observed, is a nation-state born out of religious struggle between Catholicism and, in turn, Islam, Judaism, and Protestantism. After centuries of the Reconquest, in which Christian Spaniards fought to drive Muslims from Europe, the Inquisition sought to complete the religious purification of the Iberian Peninsula by driving out Jews, Protestants, and other nonbelievers. The Inquisition was finally abolished only in the 1830s, and even after that religious freedom was denied in practice, if not in theory. Catholicism became the state religion in 1851, when the Spanish government signed a Concordat with the Vatican that committed Madrid to pay the salaries of the clergy and to subsidize other expenses of the Roman Catholic Church. This pact was renounced in 1931, when the secular constitution of the Second Republic imposed a series of anticlerical measures that threatened the church's very existence in Spain and provoked its support for the Franco uprising five years later.

The advent of the Franco regime saw the restoration of the church's privileges. During the Franco years, Roman Catholicism was the only religion to have legal status; other worship services could not be advertised, and only the Roman Catholic Church could own property or publish books. The government not only continued to pay priests' salaries and to subsidize the church, but it also assisted in the reconstruction of church buildings damaged by the war. Laws were passed abolishing divorce and banning the sale of contraceptives. Catholic religious instruction was mandatory, even in public schools. Franco secured in return the right to name Roman Catholic bishops in Spain, as well as veto power over appointments of clergy down to the parish priest level. In 1953 this close cooperation was formalized in a new Concordat with the Vatican that granted the church an extraordinary set of privileges: mandatory canonical marriages for all Catholics; exemption from government taxation; subsidies for new building construction; censorship of materials the church deemed offensive; the right to establish universities, to operate radio stations, and to publish newspapers and magazines; protection from police intrusion into church properties; and exemption of clergy from military service.

The proclamation of the Second Vatican Council in favor of the separation of church and state in 1965 forced the reassessment of this special relationship. In the late 1960s, the Vatican attempted to reform the church in Spain by appointing liberals as interim, or acting, bishops, thereby circumventing Franco's stranglehold on the country's clergy. In 1966 the Franco regime passed a law that freed other religions from many of the earlier restrictions, although it also reaffirmed the privileges of the Catholic Church. Any attempt to revise the 1953 Concordat met the dictator's rigid resistance.

In 1976, however, King Juan Carlos de Borbon unilaterally renounced the right to name the bishops; later that same year Madrid and the Vatican signed a new accord that restored to the church its right to name bishops, and the church agreed to a revised Concordat that entailed a gradual financial separation of church and state. Church property not used for religious purposes was henceforth to be subject to taxation, and gradually, over a period of years, the church's reliance on state subsidies was to be reduced. The timetable for this reduction was not adhered to, however, and the church continued to receive the public subsidy through 1987 (US$110 million in that year alone). Indeed, by the end of 1987 issues such as financing and education had not been definitively resolved, and the revised Concordat still had not been agreed to in final form, even though the 1953 Concordat had expired in 1980.

It took the new 1978 Constitution to confirm the right of Spaniards to religious freedom and to begin the process of disestablishing Catholicism as the state religion. The drafters of the Constitution tried to deal with the intense controversy surrounding state support of the church, but they were not entirely successful. The initial draft of the Constitution did not even mention the church, which was included almost as an afterthought and only after intense pressure from the church's leadership. Article 16 disestablishes Roman Catholicism as the official religion and provides that religious liberty for non-Catholics is a state-protected legal right, thereby replacing the policy of limited toleration of non-Catholic religious practices. The article further states, however, that "The public authorities shall take the religious beliefs of Spanish society into account and shall maintain the consequent relations of cooperation with the Catholic Church and the other confessions." In addition, Article 27 also aroused controversy by appearing to pledge continuing government subsidies for private, church-affiliated schools. These schools were sharply criticized by Spanish Socialists for having created and perpetuated a class-based, separate, and unequal school system. The Constitution, however, includes no affirmation that the majority of Spaniards are Catholics or that the state should take into account the teachings of Catholicism.

Government financial aid to the church was a difficult and contentious issue. The church argued that, in return for the subsidy, the state had received the social, health, and educational services of tens of thousands of priests and nuns who fulfilled vital functions that the state itself could not have performed. Nevertheless, the revised Concordat was supposed to replace direct state aid to the church with a scheme that would allow taxpayers to designate a certain portion of their taxes to be diverted directly to the church. Through 1985, taxpayers were allowed to deduct up to 10 percent from their taxable income for donations to the Catholic Church. Partly because of the protests against this arrangement from representatives of Spain's other religious groups, the tax laws were changed in 1987 so that taxpayers could choose between giving 0.52 percent of their income tax to the church and allocating it to the government's welfare and culture budgets. For three years, the government would continue to give the church a gradually reduced subsidy, but after that the church would have to subsist on its own resources. The government would continue, however, its program of subsidizing Catholic schools, which in 1987 cost the Spanish taxpayers about US$300 million, exclusive of the salaries of teachers, which were paid directly by the Ministry of Education and Science.

Anyone visiting Spain must be constantly aware of the church's physical presence in buildings, museums, and religious celebrations. In a population of about 39 million, the number of non-Catholics was probably no more than 300,000. About 250,000 of these were of other Christian faiths, including several Protestant denominations, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons. The number of Jews in Spain was estimated at about 13,000. More than 19 out of every 20 Spaniards were baptized Catholics; about 60 percent of them attended Mass; about 30 percent of the baptized Catholics did so regularly, although this figure declined to about 20 percent in the larger cities. As of 1979, about 97 percent of all marriages were performed according to the Catholic religion. A 1982 report by the church claimed that 83 percent of all children born the preceding year had been baptized in the church.

Nevertheless, there were forces at work bringing about fundamental changes in the place of the church in society. One such force was the improvement in the economic fortunes of the great majority of Spaniards, making society more materialistic and less religious. Another force was the massive shift in population from farm and village to the growing urban centers, where the church had less influence over the values of its members. These changes were transforming the way Spaniards defined their religious identity.

Being a Catholic in Spain had less and less to do with regular attendance at Mass and more to do with the routine observance of important rituals such as baptism, marriage, and burial of the dead. A 1980 survey revealed that, although 82 percent of Spaniards were believers in Catholicism, very few considered themselves to be very good practitioners of the faith. In the case of the youth of the country, even smaller percentages believed themselves to be "very good" or "practicing" Catholics.

In contrast to an earlier era, when rejection of the church went along with education, in the late 1980s studies showed that the more educated a person was, the more likely he or she was to be a practicing Catholic. This new acceptance of the church was due partly to the church's new self-restraint in politics. In a significant change from the pre-Civil War era, the church had accepted the need for the separation of religion and the state, and it had even discouraged the creation of a Christian Democratic party in the country.

The traditional links between the political right and the church no longer dictated political preferences; in the 1982 general election, more than half of the country's practicing Catholics voted for the PSOE. Although the Socialist leadership professed agnosticism, according to surveys between 40 and 45 percent of the party's rank-and-file members held religious beliefs, and more than 70 percent of these professed to be Catholics. Among those entering the party after Franco's death, about half considered themselves Catholic.

One important indicator of the changes taking place in the role of the church was the reduction in the number of Spaniards in Holy Orders. In 1984 the country had more than 22,000 parish priests, nearly 10,000 ordained monks, and nearly 75,000 nuns. These numbers concealed a troubling reality, however. More than 70 percent of the diocesan clergy was between the ages of 35 and 65; the average age of the clergy in 1982 was 49 years. At the upper end of the age range, the low numbers reflected the impact of the Civil War, in which more than 4,000 parish priests died. At the lower end, the scarcity of younger priests reflected the general crisis in vocations throughout the world, which began to be felt in the 1960s. Its effects were felt especially acutely in Spain. The crisis was seen in the decline in the number of young men joining the priesthood and in the increase in the number of priests leaving Holy Orders. The number of seminarists in Spain fell from more than 9,000 in the 1950s to only 1,500 in 1979, even though it rose slightly in 1982 to about 1,700.

Changes in the social meaning of religious vocations were perhaps part of the problem; having a priest in the family no longer seemed to spark the kind of pride that family members would have felt in the past. The principal reason in most cases, though, was the church's continued ban on marriage for priests. Previously, the crisis was not particularly serious because of the age distribution of the clergy. As the twentieth century nears an end, however, a serious imbalance will appear between those entering the priesthood and those leaving it. The effects of this crisis were already visible in the decline in the number of parish priests in Spain--from 23,620 in 1979 to just over 22,000 by 1983.

Another sign of the church's declining role in Spanish life was the diminishing importance of the controversial secular religious institute, Opus Dei (Work of God). Opus Dei was a worldwide lay religious body that did not adhere to any particular political philosophy and was allegedly nonpolitical. The organization was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer y Albas, as a reaction to the increasing secularization of Spain's universities, and higher education continued to be one of the institute's foremost priorities. Despite its public commitment to a nonpolitical stance, Opus Dei members rose to occupy key positions in the Franco regime, especially in the field of economic policy-making in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Opus Dei members dominated the group of liberal technocrats who engineered the opening of Spain's autarchic economy after 1957. After the 1973 assassination of Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco (often rumored to be an Opus Dei member), however, the influence of the institute declined sharply. The secrecy of the order and its activities and the power of its myth helped it maintain its strong position of influence in Spain; but there was little doubt that, compared with the 1950s and the 1960s, Opus Dei had fallen from being one of the country's chief political organizations to being simply one among many such groups competing for power in an open and pluralist society.

In the late 1980s, however, the church showed signs of becoming more conservative than liberal. After years of being the minority in the church hierarchy, conservative Catholic leaders had reasserted their power and influence, and they were beginning to wrest power from the liberals. One telling indicator of the return of conservatives to control within the church was the battle in late 1987 over the editorial policy of the leading Spanish Catholic weekly magazine, Vida Nueva, which ended with the liberal editor's being forced out of office and his being replaced with a conservative.

Spain

Spain - EDUCATION

In the 1980s, Spain spent about 8 percent of its national budget on education. In 1983 education expenditures amounted to only about US$120 per capita, which placed Spain forty-fifth in the world in per capita spending on education, far behind most other countries in Western Europe. In the government's 1988 budget, expenditures on education were scheduled to increase by 18 to 20 percent over 1987, to about US$170 per person. Nevertheless, rapid increases in other areas meant that spending on education declined as a proportion of the total budget, to about 6.7 percent. This level of expenditure was not only too little in an advanced industrial society, but it was also distributed in a way that was skewed toward the expensive private-sector schools.

In the 1970s, the Ministry of Education and Science began to confront the paradox that, although the General Law on Education (Ley General de Educacion--LGE) made primary education free and obligatory, the reality was that the state could not build schools or hire teachers fast enough to keep up with the demand. The consequence was a widening gap between the rising student population and the number of places available for them. The solution lay in the short run in state subsidies to private schools that enabled them to offer basic primary education free or for a reduced fee. Thus, although the government could claim that by 1977 there were enough places in school to go around, in some major cities, such as Madrid, more than half were provided by private schools.

By the early 1980s, about 40 percent of all schools were private. Of these, just over half were run by the Roman Catholic Church and enrolled some 1.2 million pupils in primary schools and 230,000 in secondary schools. The remainder of the private schools were operated as profit-making enterprises by secular owners. The religious schools often were highly regarded, and the instruction they offered probably was superior to that provided by the state-run institutions. The other private sector schools varied greatly in quality. Although a few were excellent, many others were seriously underfunded and poorly staffed, so that private secular education was not automatically associated with elite education as was the case in some other West European countries.

Between 1977 and 1982, the government's annual subsidy to private education nearly tripled. As a result, by the time the center-right coalition UCD government left office in late 1982, most primary schools were free. Unfortunately, this policy had to be paid for by drawing on funds available for state schools, with a consequent loss of teachers and instructional quality in the public system.

The Socialist government that came to power in 1982 sought to soften the conflict between private (largely Catholic) schools and public schools by integrating the private schools into the country's overall education system. To accomplish this goal, in 1984 the government passed the Organic Law on the Right to Education (Ley Organica del Derecho a la Educacion--LODE), which established three categories of schools. Free public schools were accountable to either the Ministry of Education and Science or to the governments of the autonomous communities. Instruction was subject to the principles of the Constitution, in that it had to be ideologically neutral and it had to respect diverse religious beliefs. The second category, private schools, usually secular, could be organized by any person or group as long as constitutional limits were observed. These schools were to receive no state assistance so that all costs were borne by the students' families. The third category, mixed schools, usually religious, were financed by the state. Nevertheless, the director and the faculty were chosen by a school council, or consejo escolar (pl., consejos escolares), made up of representatives of the school's diverse constituencies, including parents and faculty. Although the state did not try to control this subsidized sector, the consejos were a clear signal that it intended increased democratization in this all important realm of society. In all three models, students enjoyed the right not to receive instruction that violated their religious beliefs.

As a result of these educational reforms, during the two decades after 1965 Spain had made great strides, enrolling essentially the entire population in the age group of the primary grades and reducing the country's illiteracy to a nominal 3 to 6 percent. The really impressive gains, however, were in the secondary grades and in higher education, especially for women. In 1965 only 38 percent of Spain's youth were enrolled in secondary schools, one of the lowest percentages in Western Europe and only about 60 percent of the average of all advanced industrial countries. Only 29 percent of the country's females, less than half the industrial countries' average, were enrolled in the secondary grades. By 1985, an estimated 89 percent of all students and 91 percent of females were attending secondary schools. These figures conformed to the average of the industrial democracies, and were noticeably higher than those in Italy, Britain, or Sweden. At the university level, enrollment more than quadrupled in percentage terms, from 6 percent in 1965 to 26 percent in 1985, a level about 30 percent lower than the industrial countries' average, but still higher than that of Britain or Switzerland. In 1980 women constituted 40 percent of university enrollment (48 percent in 1984), a level only four to six percentage points behind France, Belgium, and Italy.

Nevertheless, in terms of the school-age population per teacher, Spain still ranked forty-seventh in the world, and in terms of the percentage of school-age population in school, it ranked twenty-second. In this area, demographics were working in favor of Spain's educational planners, however. Spain's "baby boom" lasted about a decade longer--until the mid-1970s--than similar phenomena did in the rest of Europe, but after 1977 the birth rate fell at a faster rate than it did in any other country in Western Europe. As a result, planners expected that the school population pressures of the 1960s and the 1970s would soon abate, giving the country's educational system some much-needed breathing space.

The minister of education and science through most of the 1980s, Jose Maria Maravall Herrero, has written that the country's educational system must fulfill four important functions: to promote the cohesion of the nation (i.e., cultural integration); to contribute to the integration of society (i.e., social integration); to foster equality of opportunity (i.e., economic integration); and to socialize citizens to hold democratic values (i.e., political integration). Spanish political elites recognized that, despite the remarkable political and economic transformation of their country, they were still presiding over a society split by cultural, social, economic, and political differences that had endured for generations. The country's educational system did little to overcome these divisions until the restoration of democracy; since then, education has become one of the principal instruments in national integration.

<"46.htm">Primary and Secondary Education
<"47.htm">Higher Education

Spain

Spain - Primary and Secondary Education

From 1970 until 1984, Spain's education system was based entirely on the LGE, often referred to as the Villar Palasi Law after the minister of education and science at the time, Jose Luis Villar Palasi. This law was the Franco government's attempt to modernize Spain's public education system. Although it has been added to, and modified by, the LODE since the return of democracy, the structure it established was still nearly completely intact in the late 1980s. The law provided that primary education (Educacion General Basica--EGB) would be free and compulsory from the ages of six to fourteen. In the 1986-87 school year, there were about 185,000 primary institutions that provided instruction to about 6.6 million students, 70 percent of whom were in state schools. Secondary education (Bachillerato Unificado Polivalente--BUP) lasted from age fourteen to sixteen and terminated in the state graduation examination, the bachillerato. Those who completed the bachillerato could then enroll in an additional one-year program (Curso de Orientacion Universitaria--COU) to prepare themselves for the university entrance exams. In the 1986-87 school year, more than 2,600 secondary schools enrolled about 1.2 million students. Studies at all institutions were organized around an academic year that ran from about mid-September to the middle or latter part of June.

Secondary school attendance was optional, but if students did not go on to secondary school, they had to enroll in vocational training for the period when they were fifteen to sixteen years of age. Students in the vocational program (Formacion Professional--FP) generally completed their studies with an equivalent exam, the labor bachillerato. In the 1986-87 school year, about 2,200 vocational centers provided instruction to more than 700,000 students. The FP was divided into two two-year phases. The first, which was obligatory for everyone who did not enter the BUP, provided a general introduction to applied vocations, such as clerical work or electronics, while the second phase offered more specialized vocational training. Special education for the physically and the mentally impaired was provided in schools run by both state and private organizations. Perhaps sensing that this model of education imposed a choice between academic and vocational studies on children at too young an age, the government began to experiment in the 1980s with an alternate model that kept students on a single, unified track until the age of sixteen. An equally troublesome aspect of the system, however, was the irreversibility of the choice between BUP and FP. Once a student had chosen the FP program, it was impossible to go on to the university, so many youngsters chose the BUP even if, at the time, they were more suited for vocational training or were better able to use the more practical skills taught in the FP. This dimension of the educational system, plus the traditional disdain of many Spaniards toward manual labor, caused the BUP to enroll nearly twice as many students as the FP. Observers believed, however, that if the economic cramp of the 1980s continued to shrink the job market, the balance might shift toward the FP because the acquisition of a marketable skill might look more important than the gaining of academic qualifications. Indeed, between the 1979-80 and 1986-87 academic years, enrollment in the vocational programs increased nearly 35 percent (from 515,000 to 695,000), while enrollment in the academic program grew by only about 8 percent (from 1.055 million to 1.142 million).

Another major problem with Spanish education was the continued high failure rate. The standards set for graduation from the EGB were not especially demanding, yet between one-fifth and one-third of all students failed to complete the course of study. Failure rates ran much higher in state schools than in private institutions. Critics blamed principally the poor quality of instruction and thus, indirectly, teacher training. In 1981 the government published a revised EGB curriculum that set forth goals for both teachers and students. This revised curriculum was not adopted easily or without resistance, and there were those who argued that it was too rigid and centralized and that it placed too much emphasis on rote memory.

The uneven spread of nursery schools contributed to the high failure rate in later years. In the 1960s and the 1970s, pre-school education began to gain in popularity to such an extent that, in the mid-1980s, some 80 percent of Spain's children between the ages of four and six went to nursery schools (1.3 million in 1986-87). Many primary teachers thus assumed that their students had completed a year or two of pre-school education. About one-third of the 39,000 nursery schools in operation in the 1986-87 school year were still in the private sector, however, and the public nurseries were little more than day care centers. The effect was to create a disadvantaged student population right from the beginning--one that was likely to persist for many years and to continue to contribute to the high failure rate within the system. The solution--universal, public-supported pre-schools--was not a likely prospect as of the late 1980s.

Another source of deficiencies in the public educational system was the low pay teachers received. Even though teachers' salaries were raised by more than 40 percent between 1983 and 1985, in 1988 the average salary for teachers in the public schools at both the elementary and the secondary levels was still only about US$15,000 per year. In 1988 more than 200,000 teachers went out on strike to gain a 14 percent pay increase that would have raised their monthly salary by about US$175. The government put down the strike after street demonstrations led to extensive violence.

Spain

Spain - Higher Education

In the late 1980s, Spain had thirty-four universities, four of which were run by the Catholic Church (three by Jesuits and one by Opus Dei). Although the Catholic universities enrolled only 30,000 of the country's 900,000 students, they were highly regarded, especially by conservative, middle-class Spaniards, and therefore they exerted an influence in higher education far out of proportion to their size. The two largest and most respected state universities, the Complutense in Madrid, which by the late 1980s enrolled about 100,000 undergraduates, and the Central in Barcelona, which had about 80,000, together accounted for almost 20 percent of all university students.

Until the 1980s, the universities were under the direct control of the central government's Ministry of Education and Science. In 1983 the Socialist government passed the Law on University Reform (Ley de Reforma Universitaria--LRU), which weakened central government control over universities and gave increased autonomy to each public university. Universities were relatively free to offer new programs and to restructure themselves internally so long as they met the qualifications imposed on all state universities. The law also weakened (at least on paper) the control of the universities that had been exercised by the catedraticos, the senior professors who held the highly prestigious chairs in each department. The new law provided that control of the universities would shift to the claustro constituyente or university council made up of professors of all ranks, as well as administrators, staff, and occasionally, for certain purposes, students.

The university system offered two distinct tracks that emphasized either academic or vocational subjects. Students could pursue a five-year or a six-year course of study in the liberal and professional programs offered by the conventional facultades (pl., sing., facultad) or departments, or a three-year program at the escuelas universitarias, which offered training in nursing, teaching, and other less elite professions. Not surprisingly, the degrees offered by the escuelas usually had a lower status than those given in the more traditional academic programs.

Spain's universities grew even more rapidly during the 1960s than the elementary and secondary schools; enrollments increased from 77,000 to 241,000 between 1960 and 1972. The 1970 General Law on Education prescribed that each student completing the bachillerato course should have a university place available to him or to her, but by the mid-1970s the government reintroduced entrance exams to slow the explosive growth of the university system. Growth continued nevertheless, and by the 1986-87 academic year, the universities enrolled about 900,000 students. Of these, about two-thirds were studying in the traditional facultades and the rest, in the more applied programs in the escuelas.

In the late 1980s, Spain had the second highest ratio of university students to population in Western Europe, yet spending per student was only one-third of the West European average, leading to poorly paid faculty (the average university professor earned only slightly more than US$21,000 per year) and inadequate facilities, such as laboratories and libraries. Only a few of the more modern universities had student residences or dormitories; students at the older, urban universities lived at home or in apartments with other students. Instruction emphasized rote memory rather than independent analysis, and university faculties rarely combined research and teaching. In addition, the university system seemed poorly attuned to the needs of the rest of the country because it was preparing far too many young people for career fields already filled to overflowing (medicine, for example) and far too few for the jobs needed in an advanced industrial society, such as those involving computers and information science.

To a much greater degree than was true for elementary and secondary education, higher education tended to perpetuate longstanding social cleavages. Writing in 1985, Minister of Education and Science Maravall observed that 10 years earlier, 66 percent of the children of university-educated parents were able to attend university, while only 3 percent of the children of parents with just a primary education had had this opportunity. In 1980 children of parents in the upper education levels were twenty-eight times more likely to enter a university than were children of unskilled workers. Even after a decade of education reform, most university students depended completely on their parents for support through the end of their studies. The country's high unemployment rate, as well as the tradition that university students did not work while completing their studies, meant that few students could pay their own education costs. The country still lacked programs of scholarships and student subsidies that would enable education expenses to be borne by society as a whole. The result was that a university education was largely the privilege of the middle and the upper classes. To some degree, the same was true of the place of women in higher education. Although in 1984 about 47 percent of the country's university enrollment was female (a figure higher than that in most other countries in Western Europe), relatively few women went on to become university professors. The majority of university-educated women continued to pursue the professions traditionally open to them, especially pharmacy, journalism, and teaching at the elementary and the secondary levels.

Spain

Spain - HEALTH AND WELFARE

According to several summary measures of social welfare, Spain could best be described as being at the low end of the list of advanced industrial countries. One such measure is the Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) developed by the Overseas Development Council, an average of three indices--life expectancy, infant mortality, and literacy. In 1980, on a scale of from 1 to 100, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, and Sweden all ranked at the top with scores of 98; Spain was twenty-eighth out of 164 countries--between Puerto Rico and Bulgaria--with a score of 92. Another measure, the Index of Net Social Progress (INSP), developed by Dr. Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania, uses data from eleven subindices, including education, health, the status of women, and welfare. On this scale, Spain, with a score of 122 for the 1979-80 period, ranked thirty-seventh out of 107 countries, quite far behind most other West European countries and comparable to several advanced Third World states, such as Mexico and Argentina. This lower rating stemmed from Spain's poor score in the Cultural Diversity Subindex, where ethnic and linguistic fragmentation caused Spain to fall in the ratings.

Health Conditions and Mortality

On a number of indicators of health care, Spain ranked fairly high among the advanced industrial countries. In both 1965 and 1981, the country had a better population-to-physician ratio than the average of the industrial democracies (800 to 1 versus 860 to 1, respectively, in 1965 and 360 to 1 versus 530 to 1, respectively, in 1981). In 1983, with more than 115,000 physicians, Spain ranked sixth in the world in its ratio of inhabitants to physicians. Despite dramatic strides in adding nursing personnel (causing a decline in the population-to-nurse ratio of from 1,220 to 1 to 280 to 1 in less than 20 years), the country remained near the bottom of the list of advanced industrial countries on this scale. Spain also ranked below most other West European countries in per capita public expenditures on health care--only US$220 per person in 1983. In 1981 there were in Spain slightly more than 1,000 hospitals and about 194,000 beds, or about 5.4 beds per 1,000 population.

As these figures suggest, the provision of health care in Spain was highly uneven. Even with a high ratio of doctors to inhabitants, the country had still not managed to eradicate such diseases as tuberculosis (more than 9,000 cases in 1983) and typhoid (5,500 cases); and there are still even a few new cases of leprosy reported each year. The root of this problem seems to be the maldistribution of the health care resources of the state's welfare system. Hospitals in one area of the country might be seriously understaffed, while those in other regions lay virtually empty. By and large, the worst-served areas were the workers' suburbs near large cities. One press report cited the neighborhood of Vallecas, near Madrid, where a population of 700,000 had no hospital at all and had only 3 doctors in residence, who were reduced to seeing patients at the rate of 1 per minute. A principal reason for understaffing was the system of multiple hospital assignments arranged by physicians to augment their salaries. Although regulations prohibited this practice, many doctors arranged to be on duty at more than one hospital at a time, thereby reducing their effectiveness in meeting patient needs.

In terms of the causes of death, Spain fairly closely resembled other advanced industrial societies, although cancer and heart disease appeared less frequently in Spain than in more industrialized countries. Of the nearly 290,000 deaths registered in 1980, almost half (45.8 percent) were due to a variety of circulatory system problems, principally heart attacks and strokes. The single most prevalent cause of death was malignant neoplasms; about one-fifth (20.2 percent) of all deaths were caused by cancer of one sort or another. About one-tenth (9.2 percent) of all deaths were occasioned by respiratory ailments. (Spaniards were the second heaviest smokers in the European Community--EC, after Greeks. About 40 percent of adults smoked, as did 50 percent of teenagers; the average 14-year-old reportedly smoked 2,700 cigarettes a year.) About 2 percent of deaths were caused by automobile accidents, and about 0.5 percent, by suicides.

In the third quarter of 1987, there were 112 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) reported in Spain, bringing to 620 the total number of Spaniards afflicted by this disease. Although high, the Spanish figure was still less than half of that France, and it was far behind the more than 40,000 cases in the United States. Slightly more than half the AIDS victims contracted the disease through narcotics-related practices; about one-fifth, from homosexual contact; and about one-tenth were hemophiliacs.

During the 1960s and the 1970s, Spain achieved dramatic gains in reducing infant mortality. Between 1965 and 1985, the infant mortality rate dropped from being the highest among the industrial market economies, 38 per 1,000, to only 10 per 1,000 in 1985, which placed it ninth lowest in the world, on a par with other advanced industrial societies. The death rate for children less than one year old declined from slightly fewer than 13 per 1,000 in 1975 to fewer than 9 per 1,000 in 1979, and for children less than 5 years of age, it declined from 15 per 1,000 to fewer than 10 per 1,000 in the same period.

Spain also registered some improvement in food consumption during the 1960s and the 1970s, with per capita caloric supply growing by about 1 percent per year (from 2,844 in 1965 to 3,358 in 1985). In 1983 Spain ranked twenty-ninth in the world in calorie supply per capita. Spaniards daily consumed more calories than, or about the same number of calories as, the residents of Britain, France, Finland, Japan, Sweden, or Norway.

Public Safety and Environmental Problems

The reform and improvement of the country's food regulations and inspection procedures were long overdue. In 1981 Spain experienced a major public health disaster, a "toxic syndrome" still unexplained, but believed to be connected with the consumption of rapeseed oil intended for industrial use, but marketed by door-to-door salesmen as olive oil. More than 300 people died from this substance, and hundreds more were permanently disabled.

The rapeseed tragedy was only one of a number of man-made or man-aggravated disasters that Spain has experienced since it crossed the threshold into industrial society. Airplane crashes, train derailments, bus collisions, hotel fires, gas explosions--these and other tragedies were nearly commonplace in Spain. Far more people died in train accidents in Spain, for example, than in any other country in Europe. Spain suffered these disasters largely because of a combination of the advanced technology of an industrializing and urbanizing society, low standards of professional competence and private sector morality (themselves the product of rapid growth), and the state's unwillingness or inability to step in to regulate this increasingly sophisticated and complex society. Two problems of special importance can be cited here: public health and environmental contamination.

As the rapeseed tragedy illustrates, one of the chief problems in the public health field had to do with food and drink inspection and regulation. Although food containers and additives were analyzed by government chemists, the food and drink themselves were not tested before being put on sale. One report on the subject in the mid-1980s estimated that, in the whole of Spain, there were fewer than 1,000 people working full-time to check the quality of the food and drink in the 225,000 places where they were manufactured, distributed, sold, and consumed. Another check of the 3,000 restaurants, bars, and hotels in Madrid found that 35 percent of the wine, 41 percent of the spirits, and 75 percent of the milk and ice were unfit for human consumption. Rapid and uncontrolled industrialization and urbanization had left a legacy of air, water, and noise pollution that would take a major government effort many years to correct. The rivers flowing through Spain's major cities, such as Madrid or <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Bilbao.htm">Bilbao, were little more than open sewers. One survey of Bilbao's Rio Nervion showed that 385 factories dumped their untreated effluents into it, and that the oxygen content was only 5 percent compared with the 60 percent, needed to sustain fish. In Madrid, air pollution was a major problem during the late 1970s and the early 1980s, when the suspended particle count reached an average of more than 200 micrograms per cubic meter of air, compared with the government's recommended maximum level of 80. Bilbao's atmospheric carbon dioxide level was the highest of all the cities in Western Europe. Air pollution was a problem, due to the heavy automobile traffic (in the late 1970s only seven countries in the world had more registered passenger cars than Spain), oil-fired space heating, and heavy industry.

Although there had been significant improvement in environmental protection in such large cities as Bilbao and Madrid in the late 1980s, the mid-sized industrial cities around the country were still experiencing rising populations and pollution at alarming rates. According to a 1987 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Spain was one of Europe's noisiest countries, principally because there were no regulations covering industrial or automobile noise levels. In late 1987, the Ministry of Public Works and City Planning finally drafted several government decrees that, for the first time, set maximum noise levels for industrial and construction machinery, motorcycles, and automobiles, and established new regulations in building codes that would require soundproofing for residences, hospitals, schools, and cultural centers. A survey of 226 firms in Madrid showed that 60 percent of their 165,000 employees were working in noise higher than government-approved limits. In 1988 a government report revealed that Spanish industry was producing 1,700,000 tons of toxic waste material each year, of which only 240,000 tons could be disposed of by burning. When the international agency, the Oslo Convention, denied Spain the right to dump some of these wastes in the North Sea, the government had to store thousands of tons of highly toxic chemicals in warehouses along the coast of the Bay of Biscay because there was no way that they could be released into the environment safely.

Housing

Housing was another area in which Spaniards had to respond to the challenges of dramatic change. During the late 1950s and the 1960s, about 14 percent of the total population changed residence permanently from one part of the country to another, and most of these people lacked suitable housing. One of the most pressing challenges of the government and of the private sector was to find or to build housing for these millions of uprooted people. The government became involved in housing policy relatively late and then only as a source of subsidy for the private sector. The government's 1961 National Housing Plan called for the construction of 4 million new dwellings by 1976. In the hope that home ownership would help dilute the working class radicalism that had fueled the economic crises of the 1930s, most of these dwellings were to be for sale, not for rent. About half of these residences were built and were financed through the unsubsidized private sector; for most of the remainder, the government subsidized only the lending institution. Thus, government-owned housing accounted for only a very small percentage of the total number of dwellings.

The private construction sector surpassed the target of 4 million new dwellings. In every major city of Spain, slums were replaced by high-rise apartment buildings that ringed the older town centers. Despite this building boom, however, by the time the wave of urban migration had subsided in the 1970s, there were still about 1.5 million people without homes, and the figure was about 230,000 as of the 1981 census. The government's housing policy had produced millions of new homes, but, by relying entirely on the private sector to produce them, the government ensured that new construction would be directed principally toward the growing middle class because there were greater profits to be made on large, expensive dwellings than there were on small, modest ones. The government attempted to offset these market forces by placing ceilings on sale prices and on the size of units to be subsidized, but the limits they imposed were so high that they did little to enlarge the market for cheap working-class housing. Not only was housing scarce, but much of it was in poor condition. According to the 1980 housing census, of the 6.5 million buildings tallied, one-fifth (1.3 million) had been built before 1900 and another one-fifth, between 1900 and 1940. Only 37 percent could be considered to be relatively modern, having been constructed since 1961. About 70 percent of the available buildings were classified as being in good condition, but nearly 10 percent were categorized as being seriously run down and in need of repair. Some 90 percent of the buildings had running water and indoor toilets, and 94 percent had electricity; but only 20 percent had central hot water service and only 4 percent had central heating.

The Socialist government elected in 1982 estimated that the country's housing stock must be increased by between 250,000 and 310,000 units each year, if all citizens were to have their own homes by the early 1990s. Still, only about 10 percent of the new dwellings were to be government-built; 200,000 units would continue to be built, financed, and sold, annually, through the private sector. Nevertheless, by the late 1980s many believed that the housing crisis was substantially over, and that Spaniards were within a decade of achieving their goal of minimally acceptable dwellings for all. In terms of quality, however, the people had to continue to live with the legacy of the 1960's construction boom--huge, impersonal apartment complexes; shoddy construction and high maintenance costs; and high purchase costs--for the foreseeable future.

Government Health and Welfare Programs

Following the reform of the government's social services in 1978, all social security benefits were under the supervision of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. In addition, the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs was responsible for public health and health education programs. In the government's 1988 budget, these programs were allocated about US$22.5 billion, a 9 percent increase over 1987 and about 23.3 percent of the total budget.

Except for unemployment benefits, most social security programs were administered under a single set of institutions created by the 1978 reform to replace the patchwork system of unions, insurance companies, mutual aid associations, and state-run programs that had evolved in haphazard fashion throughout the century. These institutions were not the only welfare system, but they did cover about 80 percent of the population, and they offered a complete range of welfare benefits, including cash payments, medical care, and social services. The programs were administered by three government agencies, together with the General Social Security Treasury, which was responsible for financial control. Cash payments were administered by the National Social Security Institute (Instituto Nacional de Seguridad Social--INSS); medical care, by the National Health Institute (Instituto Nacional de Salud--INSALUD); and social services, by the National Institute for Social Services (Instituto Nacional de Servicios Sociales--INSERSO). After the advent of the autonomous community system, several autonomous governments sought to have responsibility for social security transferred to their jurisdictions. The health care responsibilities of INSALUD were transferred to the regional government of Catalonia in 1982 and to that of Andalucia in 1983. The Pais Vasco and Valencia were scheduled to receive their authority in the health field in 1988.

As of 1984, residents had access to a fairly comprehensive program of health insurance coverage, paid for by joint contributions from workers and employers; the state added a subsidy to cover deficits. Sickness benefits ranged between 60 and 75 percent of covered earnings, and maternity benefits amounted to 75 percent of covered earnings, paid both 6 weeks before, and 8 weeks after, childbirth. Medical services of all kinds were provided to patients directly through state-run hospitals and clinics, or through institutions under contract to the state. Pension insurance or retirement coverage was available to all employees in industry, including the service industry, and to their dependents. Benefits were financed by workers, employers, and the state under the same general scheme as that used for health insurance. There were separate systems in effect for sectors that were difficult to cover in this way, including farm workers, domestic servants, seamen, public employees, miners, and so forth. Old-age pensions were payable in most cases at age 65, and they constituted 50 percent of covered earnings (the average of the highest-paid 2 of the last 7 years) plus 2 percent per year of contributions made from eleven to thirty-five years, up to a maximum of 100 percent. Pensions--usually reduced to a certain percentage of the original pension, but equalling 100 percent under certain conditions--were also payable to survivors of the covered worker.

Unemployment insurance has been available in Spain since 1919, but the state has provided benefits to those out of work only since 1961. Insured workers contributed between 1.1 and 6.3 percent of covered earnings according to 12 occupational classes, while employers contributed between 5.2 and 6.3 percent of payroll, and the state added a variable subsidy. Benefits covered the insured for up to twenty-four months under normal circumstances, and they could range between 60 and 80 percent of covered earnings. Only about 60 percent of the registered unemployed received benefits, however, because the law excluded short-term and casual employees as well as those seeking their first jobs and because agricultural workers were covered under a special program.

During the 1980s, the state's share of funding for social security programs expanded rapidly, while the proportion contributed by employers and employees declined correspondingly. In the 1970s, the state was contributing only 5 percent; however, by the 1980s the figure had risen to more than 20 percent, still quite low by West European standards. Many employers complained because of the relatively high proportion (85 percent) that they had to contribute to the non-state portion of social security funding; some even falsified records or refused to make the payments, leaving their employees without benefits. Slightly less than two-thirds of social security expenditures were paid out in cash benefits, principally in the form of pensions to the aged, widows, orphans, and the disabled. The remaining third was spent on health, on social services, and, in small part, on administration.

As in many other advanced industrial countries, Spain's welfare system was under increasing financial pressure throughout the 1980s. This was due in part to the country's economic distress, which created the dual pressures of declining contributions and tax receipts on the one hand, and increased claims for unemployment assistance on the other. Another important reason was the decline of the extended family, which in earlier times had absorbed part of the cost of helping unemployed or distressed family members. However, the main reason was that, like those in other Western countries, Spain's population was aging rapidly and therefore the state had to pay more and more in old-age pensions. These pensions tended to be quite generous, the highest, in fact, after Sweden's, in Western Europe. Between 1972 and 1982, the number of pensioners rose by an average of 184,000 each year. By 1983, when there were 4.7 million pensioners, for every beneficiary of the pension program there were only 2.3 contributors, compared with an average of five in the rest of Western Europe. Thus, in the 1980s, officials began to talk seriously about the possibility of the bankruptcy of the old-age pension system. The private sector needed to become more heavily involved through private pension plans, but in the late 1980s, legislation that would make these plans possible had failed to win government approval. In a country where the elderly have traditionally been held in high esteem and have generally been well treated, the dramatic aging of the population was still a relatively new experience that would greatly affect public policies as well as the country's social values. In 1982 there were only 62 homes for the elderly, and these cared for some 12,500 persons; by 1986 the number of centers had increased by approximately 16 percent, to 72, and the number of elderly residents had increased by 25 percent, to about 15,700. Also in 1982, some 385 day-care centers provided services to about 1.1 million elderly; by 1986, just four years later, the number of these centers had increased by 13 percent to 435, and the number of elderly served by them had increase by 55 percent, to about 1.7 million. In this same four-year period, government expenditures on social services for the elderly rose by 87 percent, direct payments to the elderly rose by more than 170 percent, and investments in facilities for the aged increased by 160 percent. It was clear that these figures would continue to increase well into the twenty-first century, raising the highly controversial political question of who would bear this fiscal burden.

Spain

Spain - The Economy

IN THE MID-1980s, Spain's per capita gross domestic product ranked low among the industrial countries represented in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, though well ahead of such nations as Greece, Yugoslavia, and Portugal. In the latter half of the decade, however, the Spanish economy entered a phase of strong expansion and employment.

Spain was a latecomer to economic and industrial modernization. Early in the twentieth century, economic progress was made in fitful starts, but in the 1960s the process of renewal began in earnest. Before then, the Spanish economy was one of the most underdeveloped in Western Europe, and it was sometimes characterized as a Third World economy. A spectacular period of growth and modernization during the 1960s and the early 1970s profoundly transformed the Spanish economy, bringing it much closer to the West European consumer society prototype. However, in late 1975, when the authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco Y Bahmonde (in power, 1939-75) came to an end, and democratic processes were restored, there were huge increases in the price of imported oil upon which Spain was heavily dependent for its energy needs. Vigorous economic expansion was replaced by recession, stagnation, and a dizzying increase in the number of unemployed wage earners.

The Socialist government, headed by Felipe Gonzalez Marquez, that came to power in late 1982--the first post-Franco government with an absolute parliamentary majority--was committed to a program of industrial renewal and economic modernization and, at the same time, to lowering the rate of inflation. Under its guidance, in the second half of the 1980s the economy experienced a growth rate and a level of foreign capital investment that were the highest in Europe. Budget deficits were reduced, inflation was lowered, foreign currency reserves were greatly increased, private enterprise enjoyed record profits, and consumer spending grew. A major accomplishment during this period was the liquidation of excess personnel and overcapacity in key industries, such as steel and shipbuilding, and the redirection of substantial capital resources to more promising hightechnology industries.

Despite the excellent economic performance of the late 1980s, the Gonzalez government was unable to reduce an unemployment rate that was then the highest among the members of the European Community (EC). The number of workers employed as a result of the economic boom was equivalent to the number of new entrants into the labor market, so that the boom only marginally reduced the number of job seekers. A mitigating circumstance, however, was that although the official unemployment rate was 20 percent, perhaps as many as one-third of those registered as unemployed were working in the "underground economy."

Spain's accession to the EC on January 1, 1986, was a driving force behind the country's accelerated modernization effort. Under the terms of its entry into the EC, Spain was required to adapt to EC norms and regulations, over a period of seven years. The EC plan to eliminate existing barriers to trade, employment, and the flow of capital throughout the EC by the end of 1992 was still another impetus. Observers believed that, barring unforeseeable adverse developments in the international economic situation, by the year 2000 Spain would at last closely resemble its neighbors, who, for most of the twentieth century, had been socially and economically more advanced.

<"50.htm">DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMY
<"53.htm">ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
<"54.htm">LABOR
<"57.htm">AGRICULTURE
<"62.htm">INDUSTRY
<"67.htm">ENERGY
<"68.htm">Banking
<"69.htm">Tourism
<"70.htm">FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS

Spain

Spain - DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMY

Economic historians generally agree that during the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, at a time when Western Europe was engaged in its great economic transformation, Spain "missed the train of the industrial revolution." Much of the chronic social and political turmoil that took place in Spain during this period can in large measure be attributed to the great difficulties the country encountered in striving for economic modernization. Throughout this period, Spanish social and economic development lagged far behind the levels attained by the industrializing countries of Western Europe. Spain's economic "take-off" began belatedly during the 1950s and reached its height during the 1960s and the early 1970s. A second cycle of economic expansion began in the mid-1980s, and if this one continues, it might catapult Spain into the company of Western Europe's more advanced industrial societies.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Spain was still mostly rural; modern industry existed only in the textile mills of Catalonia (Spanish, Cataluna; Catalan, Catalunya) and in the metallurgical plants of the Basque provinces. Even with the stimulus of World War I, only in Catalonia and in the two principal Basque provinces, Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa, did the value of manufacturing output in 1920 exceed that of agricultural production. Agricultural productivity was low compared with that of other West European countries because of a number of deficiencies--backward technology, lack of large irrigation projects, inadequate rural credit facilities, and outmoded landtenure practices. Financial institutions were relatively undeveloped. The Bank of Spain (Banco de Espana) was still privately owned, and its public functions were restricted to currency issuance and the provision of funds for state activities. The state largely limited itself to such traditional activities as defense and the maintenance of order and justice. Road building, education, and a few welfare activities were the only public services that had any appreciable impact on the economy.

Considerable economic progress was made during World War I and in the 1920s, particularly during the regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-30). The Primo de Rivera government initiated important public works projects, including construction of new highways, irrigation facilities, and modernization of the railroad system. It also made a start on reforestation programs. Industry and mining were growing, and there was an average annual increase in the industrial and mining index of 6.4 percent between 1922 and 1931. An income tax, however ineffectively collected, was introduced in 1926, and a number of new banks were started with state backing, to invest in projects considered to have national interest. Certain economic functions were turned over to private monopolistic operations--of which the most important was the petroleum distribution company, Compania Arrendataria del Monopolio de Petroleos (CAMPSA); others, such as transportation, were put under state control.

These steps toward a modern economic structure were slowed drastically by the political turmoil of the period, which culminated in the Spanish Civil War, and they were further exacerbated by the worldwide depression of the early 1930s. When the Civil War broke out in 1936, it eliminated what little chance Spain might have had to recover from the economic malaise of the period.

<"51.htm">The Franco Era, 1939-75
<"52.htm">The Post-Franco Period, 1975-1980s

Spain

Spain - The Economy - The Franco Era, 1939-75

Spain emerged from the Civil War with formidable economic problems. Gold and foreign exchange reserves had been virtually wiped out, and the neglect and devastation of war had reduced the productive capacity of both industry and agriculture. To compound the difficulties, even if the wherewithal had existed to purchase imports, the outbreak of World War II rendered many needed supplies unavailable. The end of the war did not improve Spain's plight because of subsequent global shortages of foodstuffs, raw materials, and peacetime industrial products. Spain's European neighbors faced formidable reconstruction problems of their own, and, because of their awareness that the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War had been achieved with the help of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, they had little inclination to include Spain in any multilateral recovery program. For a decade following the Civil War's end in 1939, the economy remained in a state of severe depression.

Branded an international outcast for its pro-Axis bias during World War II, Franco's regime sought to provide for Spain's well- being by adopting a policy of economic self-sufficiency. Autarchy was not merely a reaction to international isolation; it was also rooted for more than half a century in the advocacy of important economic pressure groups. Furthermore, from 1939 to 1945, Spain's military chiefs genuinely feared an Allied invasion of the peninsula and, therefore, sought to avert excessive reliance on foreign armaments.

Spain was even more economically retarded in the 1940s than it had been ten years earlier, for the residual adverse effects of the Civil War and the consequences of autarchy and import substitution were generally disastrous. Inflation soared, economic recovery faltered, and, in some years, Spain registered negative growth rates. By the early 1950s, per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was barely 40 percent of the average for West European countries. Then, after a decade of economic stagnation, a tripling of prices, the growth of a black market, food rationing, and widespread deprivation, gradual improvement began to take place. The regime took its first faltering steps toward abandoning its pretensions of self- sufficiency and toward inaugurating a far-reaching transformation of Spain's retarded economic system. Pre-Civil War industrial production levels were regained in the early 1950s, though agricultural output remained below that level until 1958.

A further impetus to economic liberalization came from the September 1953 signing of a mutual defense agreement, the Pact of Madrid, between the United States and Spain. In return for permitting the establishment of United States military bases on Spanish soil, the Eisenhower administration provided substantial economic aid to the Franco regime. More than 1 billion dollars in economic assistance flowed into Spain during the remainder of the decade as a result of the agreement. Between 1953 and 1958, Spain's gross national product (GNP) rose by about 5 percent per annum.

The years from 1951 to 1956 were marked by substantial economic progress, but the reforms of the period were only spasmodically implemented, and they were poorly coordinated. One large obstacle to the reform process was the corrupt, inefficient, and bloated bureaucracy. A former correspondent of London's Financial Times, Robert Graham, described the Franco era as "the triumph of paleocapitalism--primitive market skills operating in a jungle of bureaucratic regulations, protectionism, and peddled influence." By the mid-1950s, the inflationary spiral had resumed its upward climb, and foreign currency reserves that had stood at US$58 million in 1958 plummeted to US$6 million by mid-1959. The standard of living remained one of the lowest in Western Europe, and the backwardness of agriculture and of the land-tenure system, despite lip service to agrarian reform, kept farm productivity low. The growing demands of the emerging middle class--and of the ever greater number of tourists--for the amenities of life, particularly for higher nutritional standards, placed heavy demands on imported foodstuffs and luxury items. At the same time, exports lagged, largely because of high domestic demand and institutional restraints on foreign trade. The peseta fell to an all-time low on the black market, and Spain's foreign currency obligations grew to almost US$60 million.

A debate took place within the regime over strategies for extricating the country from its economic impasse, and Franco finally opted in favor of a group of neoliberals. The group included bankers, industrial executives, some academic economists, and members of the semi-secret Roman Catholic lay organization, Opus Dei (Work of God).

During the 1957-59 period, known as the pre-stabilization years, economic planners contented themselves with piecemeal measures such as moderate anti-inflationary stopgaps and increases in Spain's links with the world economy. A combination of external developments and an increasingly aggravated domestic economic crisis, however, forced them to engage in more far- reaching changes.

As the need for a change in economic policy became manifest in the late 1950s, an overhaul of the Council of Ministers in February 1957 brought to the key ministries a group of younger men, most of whom possessed economics training and experience. This reorganization was quickly followed by the establishment of a committee on economic affairs and the Office of Economic Coordination and Planning under the prime minister.

Such administrative changes were important steps in eliminating the chronic rivalries that existed among economic ministries. Other reforms followed, the principal one being the adoption of a corporate tax system that required the confederation of each industrial sector to allocate an appropriate share of the entire industry's tax assessment to each member firm. Chronic tax evasion was consequently made more difficult, and tax collection receipts rose sharply. Together with curbs on government spending, in 1958 this reform created the first government surplus in many years.

More drastic remedies were required as Spain's isolation from the rest of Western Europe became exacerbated. Neighboring states were in the process of establishing the EC and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). In the process of liberalizing trade among their members, these organizations found it difficult to establish economic relations with countries wedded to trade quotas and bilateral agreements, such as Spain.

Spanish membership in these groups was not politically possible, but Spain was invited to join a number of other international institutions. In January 1958, Spain became an associate member of the Organisation for European Economic Co- operation (OEEC), which became the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) in September 1961, and which included among its members virtually every developed country in the noncommunist world. In 1959 Spain joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These bodies immediately became involved in helping Spain to abandon the autarchical trade practices that had brought its reserves to such low levels and that were isolating its economy from the rest of Europe.

Spain traditionally paid close attention to events in France and was often influenced by them. In December 1958, the French government adopted a stabilization program in order to overcome a severe economic slump; this program included devaluation of the franc, tax increases, and the removal of restrictions on most of France's trade with OECD countries. The French action removed whatever doubts the Spanish authorities had harbored about embarking on a wholesale economic transformation. After seven months of preparation and drafting, aided by IMF and French economists, Spain unveiled its Stabilization Plan on June 30, 1959. The plan's objectives were twofold: to take the necessary fiscal and monetary measures required to restrict demand and to contain inflation, while, at the same time, liberalizing foreign trade and encouraging foreign investment.

The plan's initial effect was deflationary and recessionary, leading to a drop in real income and to a rise in unemployment during its first year. The resultant economic slump and reduced wages led approximately 500,000 Spanish workers to emigrate in search of better job opportunities in other West European countries. Nonetheless, its main goals were achieved. The plan enabled Spain to avert a possible suspension of payments abroad to foreign banks holding Spanish currency, and by the close of 1959 Spain's foreign exchange account showed a US$100-million surplus. Foreign capital investment grew sevenfold between 1958 and 1960, and the annual influx of tourists began to rise rapidly.

As these developments steadily converted Spain's economic structure into one more closely resembling a free-market economy, the country entered the greatest cycle of industrialization and prosperity it had ever known. Foreign aid played a significant role. Such aid took the form of US$75 million in drawing rights from the IMF, US$100 million in OEEC credits, US$70 million in commercial credits from the Chase Manhattan Bank and the First National City Bank, US$30 million from the United States Export- Import Bank, and funds from United States aid programs. Total foreign backing amounted to US$420 million. The principal lubricants of the economic expansion, however, were the hard currency remittances of 1 million Spanish workers abroad, which are estimated to have offset 17.9 percent of the total trade deficit from 1962 to 1971; the gigantic increase in <"69.htm"> tourism that drew more than 20 million visitors per year by the end of the 1960s and that accounted for at least 9 percent of the GNP; and direct foreign investment, which between 1960 and 1974 amounted to an impressive US$7.6 billion. More than 40 percent of this investment came from the United States, almost 17 percent came from Switzerland, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and France each accounted for slightly more than 10 percent. By 1975 foreign capital represented 12.4 percent of all that invested in Spain's 500 largest industrial firms. An additional billion dollars came from foreign sources through a variety of loans and credit devices.

The success of the stabilization program was attributable to both good luck and good management. It took place at a time of economic growth and optimism in Western Europe, which as a result was ready to accept increased Spanish exports, to absorb Spain's surplus labor, and to spend significant sums of money on vacations in Spain and on investments in Spanish industry.

Spain

Spain - The Economy - The Post-Franco Period, 1975-1980s

Franco's death in 1975 and the ensuing transition to democratic rule diverted Spaniards' attention from urgent economic problems. The return to democracy coincided with an explosive quadrupling of oil prices, which had an extremely serious effect on the economy because Spain imported 70 percent of its energy, mostly in the form of Middle Eastern oil. Nonetheless, the centrist government of Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez, which had been named to succeed the Franco regime by King Juan Carlos de Borbon, did little to shore up the economy or even to reduce Spain's heavy dependence on imported oil. A virtually exclusive preoccupation with the politics of democratization and the drafting of a new political system prevailed.

Because of the failure to adjust to the drastically changed economic environment brought on by the two oil price shocks of the 1970s, Spain quickly confronted plummeting productivity, an explosive increase in wages from 1974 to 1976, a reversal of migration trends as a result of the economic slump throughout Western Europe, and the steady outflow of labor from agricultural areas despite declining job prospects in the cities. All these factors joined in producing a sharp rise in unemployment. Government budgetary deficits swelled, as did large social security cost overruns and the huge operating losses incurred by a number of public-sector industries. Energy consumption, meanwhile, remained excessive. The years of economic recession, beginning in 1975, were not solely attributable to the oil crisis, but they revealed, in the words of one Spanish economist, Eduardo Merigo, "an institutional structure that was creaking at the seams, unable to function in a country in which output had increased nearly five times in thirty years." These structural deficiencies made Spain more vulnerable than most other modern economies to the oil crises of the 1970s.

When the Socialist government headed by Felipe Gonzalez took office in late 1982, the economy was in dire straits. Inflation was running at an annual rate of 16 percent, the external current account was US$4 billion in arrears, public spending had gotten out of hand, and foreign exchange reserves had become dangerously depleted. In coping with the situation, however, the Gonzalez government had one asset that no previous post-Franco government had enjoyed, namely, a solid parliamentary majority in both houses of the Cortes (Spanish Parliament). With this majority, it was able to undertake unpopular austerity measures that earlier weak and unstable governments had been unable even to consider.

The Socialist government opted for pragmatic, orthodox monetary and fiscal policies, together with a series of vigorous retrenchment measures. In 1983 it unveiled a program that provided a more coherent and long-term approach to the country's economic ills. Renovative structural policies--such as the closing of large, unprofitable state enterprises--helped to correct the more serious imbalances underlying the relatively poor performance of the economy. The government launched an industrial reconversion program, brought the problem-ridden social security system into better balance, and introduced a more efficient energy-use policy. Labor market flexibility was improved, and private capital investment was encouraged with incentives.

By 1985 the budgetary deficit was brought down to 5 percent of GNP, and it dropped to 4.5 percent in 1986. Real wage growth was contained, and it was generally kept below the rate of inflation. Inflation was reduced to 4.5 percent in 1987, and analysts believed it might decrease to the government's goal of 3 percent in 1988.

Efforts to modernize and to expand the economy were greatly aided by a number of factors that fostered the remarkable economic boom of the 1980s: the continuing fall in oil prices, increased <"69.htm">tourism, a sharp reduction in the exchange value of the United States dollar, and a massive upsurge in the inflow of foreign investment. These exogenous factors allowed the economy to undergo rapid expansion without experiencing balance of payments' constraints, despite the fact that the economy was being exposed to foreign competition in accordance with EC requirements. Were it not for these factors, the process of integration with the EC would have been a good deal more painful, and inflation would have been much higher.

In the words of the OECD's 1987-88 survey of the Spanish economy, "following a protracted period of sluggish growth with slow progress in winding down inflation during the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, the Spanish economy has entered a phase of vigorous expansion of output and employment accompanied by a marked slowdown of inflation." In 1981 Spain's GDP growth rate had reached a nadir by registering a rate of negative 0.2 percent; it then gradually resumed its slow upward ascent with increases of 1.2 percent in 1982, 1.8 percent in 1983, 1.9 percent in 1984, and 2.1 percent in 1985. The following year, however, Spain's real GDP began to grow by leaps and bounds, registering a growth rate of 3.3 percent in 1986 and 5.5 percent in 1987. The 1987 figure was the highest since 1974, and it was the strongest rate of expansion among OECD countries that year. Analysts projected a rise of 3.8 percent in 1988 and of 3.5 percent in 1989, a slight decline but still roughly double the EC average. They expected that declining interest rates and the government's stimulative budget would help sustain economic expansion. Industrial output, which rose by 3.1 percent in 1986 and by 5.2 percent in 1987, was also expected to maintain its expansive rate, growing by 3.8 percent in 1988 and by 3.7 percent in 1989.

A prime force generating rapid economic growth was increased domestic demand, which grew by a steep 6 percent in 1986 and by 4.8 percent in 1987, in both years exceeding official projections. During 1988 and 1989, analysts expected demand to remain strong, though at slightly lower levels. Much of the large increase in demand was met in 1987 by an estimated 20 percent jump in real terms in imports of goods and services.

In the mid-1980s, Spain achieved a strong level of economic performance while simultaneously lowering its rate of inflation to within two points of the EC average. However, its export performance, though increasing by .5 percent, raised concerns over the existing imbalance between import and export growth.

Spain

Spain - The Economy - ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

The public sector of the postwar Spanish economy was not conspicuously large, compared with the corresponding sectors of most other West European countries. Much of it came into existence under the Franco regime. Spain's communication and transportation facilities were publicly operated, as was the case on most of the rest of the continent. State trading monopolies were maintained for petroleum products, tobacco, and some agricultural products, but most industry other than coal mining, iron and steel making, shipbuilding, and aircraft assembly, was privately owned. Most of the major financial institutions were also privately owned. Yet agriculture, which was largely in private hands, was affected by a panoply of subsidies and marketing controls. Irrigation projects and reforestation and land reform programs were also important official concerns.

The single largest component of the public sector was the National Industrial Institute (Instituto Nacional de Industria-- INI), a government holding company that was primarily, though not exclusively, involved in industry. In addition to INI, the public sector included the Grupo Patrimonio, founded in the late nineteenth century. Formally referred to as the Directorate General for State Assets (Direccion General del Patrimonio del Estado--DGPE), it functioned under the auspices of the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Commerce. In the mid-1980s, there were about two dozen companies in the DGPE, operating in a variety of sectors, such as communications, finance, transportation, agriculture, and textiles. Three companies dominated the group: the National Telephone Company of Spain (Compania Telefonica Nacional de Espana--CTNE), the tobacco distributor (Tabacalera), and the Overseas Trade Bank (Banco Exterior de Espana). Together they accounted for the bulk of the employment and the financial holdings of the group's members. The shares of these companies were held directly by the state, rather than indirectly through a holding company, as was the case with INI. One of the main purposes of the DGPE was to channel to the government the revenues from the sale of certain commodities placed in the hands of monopoly distributors, though such monopolies were coming to an end as a result of Spain's entry into the EC. The DGPE had also taken an active role in restructuring the textile industry.

Economic Ministries

Under the Felipe Gonzalez government, the minister of economy, finance, and commerce served as "superminister" and chief government spokesman with the responsibility of advising the prime minister on economic and financial policies. The Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Commerce formulated general economic policies; prepared the budget; audited the state's accounts; supervised expenditures; managed the public debt; supervised the banks, insurance companies, and stock exchanges; and collected taxes. It therefore had a major role in the conduct of both fiscal and monetary policy. It was also responsible for all matters concerned with publicly owned properties involved in industrial, agricultural, and commercial ventures, including supervision of those under the day-to-day management of other ministries.

Other ministries having primarily economic functions included the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food; the Ministry of Transportation, <"69.htm">Tourism, and Communications; the Ministry of Industry and Energy; the Ministry of Labor and Social Security; and the Ministry of Public Works and City Planning. There was also an interministerial Economic Affairs Committee (Comision de Asuntos Economicos), which consisted of the heads of economically important ministries and the undersecretary of state for the economy.

Budget and Fiscal Policy

The budget of the central government reflected only a part of the financial resources involved in the execution of fiscal policy. Other official receipts and expenditures, including social security revenues and payments, local and regional government taxation and spending, and the operations of autonomous organizations associated with defense, education, and agrarian development, brought the total amount of government outlays in 1987 to 13,200 billion pesetas, or 41 percent of GDP. Thus, despite the sharp rise in revenues recorded in 1987, the central government deficit narrowed only from 1,659 billion pesetas to 1,623 billion pesetas on a national accounts basis.

Government spending tended to be expansionary. Even in 1987, when government receipts were unusually high because of strong economic growth, a crackdown on tax fraud, and the introduction of a value-added tax in 1986, state expenditures outstripped state income and the government's deficit amounted to about 3.8 percent of 1987's GDP. When regional and local government expenditures were figured in, the total deficit amounted to approximately 5 percent. Budgetary estimates for 1988 indicated that the central government deficit could be held to approximately 3 percent of GDP. Initial budgets, however, have usually underestimated ultimate spending.

Spain

Spain - LABOR

Throughout much of the twentieth century, there has been a dramatic shift in the makeup of the Spanish population and in the nature of its employment. As late as the 1920s, 57 percent of Spain's active population was concentrated in agriculture. During the next 30 years, the number of people employed in this sector fell by only 10 percent. Starting in 1950, however, the sector's share of the work force fell by close to 10 percent each decade, so that by the early 1980s its share had shrunk to about 15 percent. Even after the economic transformation in the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, agricultural employment continued to fall steadily--by an estimated 4 percent per year between 1976 and 1985. Migration from rural regions to areas where employment was available led to the virtual depopulation of a number of rural towns and provinces, especially those in the middle of the country.

The evolution in the size and the composition of the working population offered an index to the country's modernization process. Since the 1920s, the number of workers employed in industry and services had virtually doubled. Industry's share of the work force had gone from about 20 percent in 1920 to a high point of 38 percent in 1975, after which it had begun to decline, dropping to 32 percent by 1985. The service sector had grown steadily, from 20 percent of the work force in 1920 to 52 percent in 1985, declining only during the bleak 1940s. It had surpassed the industrial sector at the end of the boom years in the mid1970s , when it accounted for about 40 percent of the work-force. Despite the economic slump of the 1975-85 period, the service sector grew strongly--an indication of Spain's development toward a postindustrial society and its increasing resemblance to the economic structures of other West European countries.

Spain has been fairly constant in the portion of its population actively involved in the economy. For all of the twentieth century, just over one-third of the population has either had a job or has been looking for one. A high point was reached in 1965, when 38.5 percent of all Spaniards were in the work force. During the 1980s, the figure hovered at about 33 to 34 percent.

Compared with other West European countries, however, Spain has been distinguished by the low participation of women in the work force. In 1970 only 18 percent of the country's women were employed, compared with 26 percent in Italy and 30 to 40 percent in northern Europe. During the 1980s, female employment increased, but women still made up less than 30 percent of the economically active population, considerably less than they did in Finland, for example, where nearly half of all those employed were female and where three-quarters of all women worked outside the home. Female participation in the labor market was increasing in the second half of the 1980s, and it had jumped 2 percent between 1985 and 1987, when, according to an OECD report, it reached 29.9 percent in mid-1987. El Pais, a respected daily, reported that there were 3.5 million women in the work force of 15 million at the end of 1987, which gave them a share of about 32 percent of the total.

The Unemployment Problem

Spain's most nagging and seemingly intractable economic problem has been the persistence of high unemployment. The industry shakeout of the 1975-85 period, declining job opportunities in agriculture, and the virtual drying up of the need for Spanish workers in Western Europe led to an unemployment rate that, throughout the 1980s, rarely went below 20 percent, the highest rate in Europe. Overall employment between 1976 and 1985 declined by almost 25 percent. The sharp slowdown in labor demand, following the first oil shock, coincided with the growing exodus from rural areas. The decline in industrial employment was due not only to production cutbacks in a number of key sectors, but also to prior widespread overmanning and to the abruptly urgent need to address deteriorating economic conditions by stressing higher productivity and lower unit labor costs. The ensuing slowdown in real wage growth did not moderate before 1980. As a result, real wages surpassed productivity between 1976 and 1979 by 22 percent.

Though government programs, such as the strengthened Employment Promotion Programs, led to the hiring of more than 1 million people in 1987--more than double the average of about 450,000 per year between 1979 and 1984--they did not appreciably alter the level of joblessness. With almost 3 million people unemployed in 1988, the official unemployment level of 20.5 percent was almost double the OECD average. Record numbers of new job openings were created in the buoyant economy of 1987, and total employment increased by 3 percent, but the new jobs barely kept pace with the growth of the labor force. Undoubtedly, the unemployment rate would have been much higher were it not for the relatively low level of participation of women in the labor force. The unemployment rate for women in the labor force was about one-third higher than that for men.

Youth unemployment was particularly high. The under-25 agegroup accounted for nearly 55 percent of all unemployment, a factor that contributed to juvenile delinquency and street crime. Thus the increasing participation of young people and women in the work force contributed to a persistence of high unemployment in the booming economy of the late 1980s because of the relatively low rates of employment among both groups. Another reason was that, although the economy was growing, part of the expansion was due to improved equipment, and not to increased employment. Industrial production, for example, rose by 4.7 percent in 1987, but industrial employment grew only by 2.5 percent. Nonetheless, these official unemployment rates were believed to be too high, for they did not take account of those persons believed to be working in the underground economy.

The Underground Economy

With the growth in unemployment, rising labor costs, rigid legal regulations, increasing numbers of layoffs and discharges, and high employer social security taxes, since the 1970s Spain has experienced the growth of an increasingly important underground economy (economia sumergida). Its rise has been of growing concern to government policymakers. Observers estimated that it accounted for 10 percent to 15 percent of the GNP, and a 1985 government study suggested that the number of those employed in the underground economy amounted to 18 percent of the entire active labor force. Other analysts believed that as many as 33 percent of those officially listed as unemployed-- about 20 percent of the working population--were actually working in the shadow economy. Workers in this sector were particularly numerous in labor-intensive industries and services. According to official estimates, agriculture accounted for the largest share, estimated at perhaps 30 percent; services claimed up to 25 percent; construction, 20 percent; and industry, a little less than 20 percent. Most of those involved in the service sector worked as domestics.

Typically, workers in the underground economy were young people with minimal educational and professional qualifications. Many were single women, more often than not, those without family responsibilities. This sector of the economy was marked by high labor turnover; its employees earned substandard wages, and they often toiled in unhealthy surroundings, frequently at home. Though wages were low, those who worked in the underground economy could avoid paying taxes and social security contributions--an aspect of the sector that made it attractive to employers as well as to laborers.

<"55.htm">Labor Relations in the Franco Era
<"56.htm">Labor Relations in the Post-Franco Period

Spain

Spain - Labor Relations in the Franco Era

Labor relations until the late 1950s were generally of a fascist, authoritarian type. Wages and working conditions were set by decrees issued by the government, and all wage earners were required to be members of the government body, the Spanish Syndical Organization (Organizacion Sindical Espanola--OSE). Collective bargaining, independent labor organizations, and strikes were prohibited. In conjunction with the general economic liberalization of the late 1950s, the 1958 Collective Bargaining Law (Ley de Convenios Colectivos) for the first time permitted limited local collective bargaining between employers and labor within the framework of the OSE.

Despite police repression and the heavy penalties that were given to striking workers--striking was considered the equivalent of a treasonable offense--there were a number of labor conflicts during the 1950s, especially in Barcelona and in the Basque region, both pre-Civil War trade-union strongholds. Through harsh police measures and the imprisonment of workers, these conflicts were readily brought under control. They were, however, harbingers of a tidal wave of labor unrest that was to inundate the country during the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

As workers and their clandestine labor organizations grew more assertive during the mid-1960s, they sought a larger share of the country's growing prosperity. An oppositional grass-roots labor movement, which became known as the Workers' Commissions (Comisiones Obreras--CCOO), arose within the official labor organization. During the 1960s and 1970s, the CCOO became the principal opposition to government-controlled labor organizations. The CCOO had links to the Roman Catholic Church, which during the same period was undergoing a growing liberalization with the encouragement of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. The church dissociated itself from the Franco regime, and it championed Spanish trade union freedoms and collective bargaining rights. Some church-sponsored labor groups were permitted to operate openly, most notably the Catholic Action Workers' Brotherhood (Hermandad Obrera de Accion Catolica--HOAC). On July 24, 1968, the Bishops' Conference condemned Spain's government labor organizations and issued a call for free trade unions. Churches provided a sanctuary for striking workers and served as a refuge from the police.

Oppositional union groups became more active in elections for shop-level representatives. As slates of candidates sponsored by the CCOO and others increasingly won elections for factory shop stewards (jurados de empresa), the OSE became more and more dysfunctional. Meanwhile, the influence of the Catholic leadership of the CCOO lessened, as communists became increasingly dominant and as the movement became more active. Labor unrest underwent an explosive expansion. There were 777 strikes in 1963, 484 in 1965, and the number mushroomed in 1970 to 1,595. The strikes resulted in major wage gains, frequently exceeding official guidelines.

Semiclandestine independent trade unions began to emerge during the final decade of the Franco regime. In addition to the CCOO, other groups began to make their presence felt. The socialist General Union of Workers (Union General de Trabajadores--UGT), historically, the labor arm of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol-- PSOE), belatedly emerged as a leading contender for worker leadership. In the Basque region, the Basque Workers' Solidarity (Eusko Langilleen Alkartasuna-Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos- -ELA-STV), the labor adjunct of the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco--PNV), also made a reappearance. In addition, various organizations spawned by the church's active defense of workers' rights, the most notable being the Workers' Syndical Union (Union Sindical Obrera--USO), vied for workers support. The anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labor (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo--CNT), which had been one of the two dominant trade union centers before 1939, reappeared sporadically in post-Franco Spain as a tiny, marginal force.

Spain

Spain - Labor Relations in the Post-Franco Period

The Franco regime ended amidst a wave of worker ferment and considerable strike activity. By 1975, brutal repression no longer sufficed to snuff out social discontent, as worker militancy overwhelmed an increasingly dysfunctional OSE and forced employers to negotiate directly with representatives of the semilegal independent unions. The strike waves that crested between 1974 and 1976 coincided with the huge oil price increases that began in 1973. The country's political elite, because it was engrossed with the transition to parliamentary democracy, gave only passing attention to labor unrest and to the increasing deterioration of the economy. The institutional changes of this period had not yet established channels for collective bargaining, nor did consultative machinery exist to negotiate general wage guidelines.

Industrial workers, having inadequately partaken of the growing prosperity of earlier years, resented rising inflation and sought to make up for lost time despite mounting economic difficulties. A virtual wage explosion took place as workers and their semilegal spokesmen extracted large pay increases from their employers. From 1974 to 1976, wages rose much more rapidly than did the cost of living. Analysts estimated that wage increases in those years averaged 20 to 30 percent per annum. Price controls managed to keep inflation well below these levels, at least for a time. Profits declined sharply, while the wage component of Spain's national income rose steeply--by four percentage points between 1974 and 1975. Output was maintained at fairly normal levels, as increased wage levels led to rapid growth in consumption, but depressive factors soon had an adverse effect on the economy. Unemployment rose from an insignificant 2.5 percent in 1973 to 8.5 percent in 1979, and thereafter it continued to rise steadily.

Free trade unions were formally legalized on April 28, 1977, and the first post-Franco parliamentary elections, which were held the following June, saw Suarez and his center-right Union of the Democratic Center (Union de Centro Democratico--UCD) emerge victorious, but with only a plurality of the parliamentary seats. In October 1977, government and opposition parties agreed on an economic package, the Moncloa Pacts. The pact were designed to prevent further economic deterioration and to buy time while the country awaited the October referendum on the new 1978 Constitution. The pacts called for a 22-percent wage increase ceiling. This figure was below the rate of inflation, and it signified a reduction in popular purchasing power. In 1979, however, the government-labor consensus came to an end; partisan politics resumed, as unions sought wage adjustments that were at least equal to increases in the cost of living.

The Workers' Statute, adopted in March 1980, articulated trade union rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. The statute eliminated direct government intervention in labor relations. It also included provisions for minimum wage standards, for access to social security funds, and for a delineation of the contractual nature of wage accords. Democratically elected works councils (comites de empresa) were established as spokesmen for employees, and unions were given responsibility for arriving at industry-wide, and at local wage agreements.

During the 1970s, Spain's economic recession and the critical situation confronting many firms led to the establishment of implicit or explicit social contracts in which government, employers, and unions participated. Unions tended to accept wage restraint, and they increased productivity in exchange for improved job security and for promises to create more job opportunities. In 1980 the UGT and the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organizations (Confederacion Espanola de Organizaciones Empresariales--CEOE) negotiated a pact called the Inter-Confederation Framework Agreement (Acuerdo Marco Interconfederal--AMI), embodying these features. The agreement set the pattern for 800,000 companies. These companies had an aggregate work force of 6 million persons, or half of the country's economically active population.

Since the death of Franco, the UGT and the CCOO have been engaged in a fierce rivalry for hegemony in the labor movement. The struggle has had strong political ramifications because the UGT served as the trade union arm of the governing PSOE, and the CCOO was controlled by the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de Espana--PCE) and by other communist splinter groups. In the 1978 elections for members of the works councils, the CCOO elected 34 percent of their candidates, compared with the UGT's 20 percent. By 1980, however, the tide began to turn, and the UGT succeeded in electing close to 30 percent of its supporters, having made inroads into CCOO voting strongholds. The decision of a large number of USO affiliates to merge with the UGT also enhanced its strength. In 1982 the UGT managed to edge out the CCOO by a 36 percent to 33 percent margin, and in the succeeding election, held in October-December 1986, it gained a further 4 percentage points, garnering a total of 41 percent, while the CCOO advanced only slightly to 34 percent. The UGT's strength was concentrated in smaller enterprises, whereas the CCOO's popularity advanced in public-sector companies and in the banking sector. In the late 1980s, the CCOO dominated the works councils in all the leading companies of INI, except for the tobacco monopoly. The ELA-STV continued to maintain its position as the single largest labor organization in the Basque region, but it was closely followed by the UGT.

Not long after coming to power in late 1982, the Socialist government became increasingly embroiled in an acrimonious relationship with the equally socialist UGT. To advance its program for industrial restructuring and for the revitalization of the economy, in order to prepare for integration into the EC, the government considered it necessary to enforce wage restraint, to carry out large-scale personnel cutbacks in a number of public-sector companies, to limit social spending, and to permit employers greater latitude in hiring, firing, and laying off workers. In exchange for docility and low wages, workers during the Franco era received virtual lifetime job security, making it practically impossible for employers to engage in personnel retrenchment; however, a free-market economy, especially one linked to the EC, required the elimination of this rigid employment status--a goal toward which the Gonzalez government was gradually moving. Though such measures contributed to the economic boom of the late 1980s, they seriously undercut the standing of trade unions. Furthermore, labor militants were incensed to find that in 1987 company profits greatly increased-- an average of 40 percent--while the government continued to insist on wage restraint. The two-year Economic and Social Agreement, which covered wages and related matters and was signed by the government, employers, and workers, expired at the end of 1986. Thereafter, government efforts to persuade unions to accept a social compact failed because of union insistence on wage increases appreciably higher than those proposed by the government and because of union opposition to further personnel reductions in state enterprises that operated at a loss. The result was that union contract renewals in early 1987 led to a resurgence of labor disputes and to an increase in the number of work stoppages.

Trade unions entered the post-Franco era with great prestige and large memberships. According to the unions, their combined membership totalled 3 million workers. Since then, however, organized labor has steadily lost strength because of rising unemployment and limitations on wage increases. As a consequence, most workers professed sympathy and regard for the unions, but few bothered to pay dues. In the late 1980s, probably fewer than 15 percent of all workers possessed union cards. Nonetheless, a much larger proportion heeded union calls during negotiations for economic agreements and participated in strikes and other jobrelated actions.

Spain

Spain - AGRICULTURE

Viewed in terms of land mass, Spain is one of the largest countries of Western Europe, and it ranks second in terms of its elevation, after Switzerland. A large part of the country is semiarid, with temperatures that range from extremely cold in the winter to scorching in the summer. Rainfall, which is often inadequate, tends to be concentrated in two generally brief periods during the year. Summer droughts occur frequently. Of Spain's 50.5 million hectares of land, 20.6 million, or about 40 percent, are suitable for cultivation; however, the soil is generally of poor quality, and only about 10 percent of the land can be considered excellent. In addition, the roughness of the terrain has been an obstacle to agricultural mechanization and to other technological improvements. Furthermore, years of neglect have created a serious land erosion problem, most notably in the dry plains of Castilla-La Mancha.

Compared with other West European countries, the proportion of land devoted to agricultural purposes is low. In the 1980s, about 5 million hectares were devoted to permanent crops: orchards, olive groves, and vineyards. Another 5 million lay fallow each year because of inadequate rainfall. Permanent meadows and pastureland occupied 13.9 million hectares. Forests and scrub woodland accounted for 11.9 million hectares, and the balance was wasteland or was taken up by populated and industrial areas.

The primary forms of property holding in Spain have been large estates (latifundios) and tiny land plots (minifundios). In large measure, this was still true in the 1980s. The agrarian census of 1982 found that 50.9 percent of the country's farmland was held in properties of 200 or more hectares, although farms of this size made up only 1.1 percent of the country's 2.3 million farms. At the other end of the scale, the census showed that 61.8 percent of Spain's farms had fewer than 5 hectares of land. These farms accounted for 5.2 percent of the country's farmland. Furthermore, just under 25-percent of all farms consisted of less than 1 hectare of land, and they accounted for 0.5 percent of all farmland. Minifundios were particularly numerous in the north and the northwest. Latifundios were mainly concentrated in the south, in Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Valencia, and Andalusia (Spanish, Andalucia).

Crop areas were farmed in two highly diverse manners. Areas relying on nonirrigated cultivation (secano), which made up 85 percent of the entire crop area, depended solely on rainfall as a source of water. They included the humid regions of the north and the northwest, as well as vast arid zones that had not been irrigated. The much more productive regions devoted to irrigated cultivation (regadio) accounted for 3 million hectares in 1986, and the government hoped that this area would eventually double, as it already had doubled since 1950. Particularly noteworthy was the development in Almeria--one of the most arid and desolate provinces of Spain--of winter crops of various fruits and vegetables for export to Europe.

Though only about 17 percent of Spain's cultivated land was irrigated, it was estimated to be the source of between 40 and 45 percent of the gross value of crop production and of 50 percent of the value of agricultural exports. More than half of the irrigated area was planted in corn, fruit trees, and vegetables. Other agricultural products that benefited from irrigation included grapes, cotton, sugar beets, potatoes, legumes, olive trees, strawberries, tomatoes, and fodder grasses. Depending on the nature of the crop, it was possible to harvest two successive crops in the same year on about 10 percent of the country's irrigated land.

Citrus fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, olive oil, and wine--Spain's traditional agricultural products--continued to be important in the 1980s. In 1983 they represented 12 percent, 12 percent, 8 percent, 6 percent, and 4 percent, respectively, of the country's agricultural production. Because of the changed diet of an increasingly affluent population, there was a notable increase in the consumption of livestock, poultry, and dairy products. Meat production for domestic consumption became the single most important agricultural activity, accounting for 30 percent of all farm-related production in 1983. Increased attention to livestock was the reason that Spain became a net importer of grains. Ideal growing conditions, combined with proximity to important north European markets, made citrus fruits Spain's leading export. Fresh vegetables and fruits produced through intensive irrigation farming also became important export commodities, as did sunflower seed oil that was produced to compete with the more expensive olive oils in oversupply throughout the Mediterranean countries of the EC.

Agricultural Development

Farming was only marginally affected by the Civil War, yet agricultural output during the 1940s remained below the 1933 level. This low agricultural productivity led to food rationing, substantially contributing to the great hardships endured by people residing in the cities. One of the main reasons for this dilemma was the government preoccupation with industrial selfsufficiency , which resulted in neglect for the modernization of agriculture. The government did encourage grain cultivation with the aim of achieving agricultural self-sufficiency, but heavyhanded efforts to control food prices led to the massive channeling of agricultural products into the black market.

The traditional shortcomings of Spanish agriculture-- excessive land fragmentation (minifundismo) and extremely large land tracts in the hands of a few (latifundismo)-- were, for all practical purposes, ignored. As in the past, latifundio areas with low yields and little irrigation were primarily devoted to the production of such traditional commodities as olive oil, grains, and wine. They were, moreover, the areas where casual rural laborers (braceros) were concentrated, where wage levels were lowest, and where illiteracy rates were highest.

A gradual change in Spanish agriculture began in the 1950s, when prices rapidly increased, and the surplus labor pool began to shrink, as a half million rural field hands migrated to the cities or went abroad in search of a better life. Nonetheless, more substantial changes did not take place prior to the 1960s. The Stabilization Plan of 1959 encouraged emigration from rural areas, and the economic boom in both Spain and Western Europe provided increased opportunities for employment. The subsequent loss of rural manpower had a farreaching effect on both agricultural prices and wage levels and, as a consequence, on the composition of Spanish agriculture.

Spain's economic transformation in the 1960s and in the first half of the 1970s caused tremendous outmigration from rural areas. Between 1960 and 1973, 1.8 million people migrated to urban areas. Even later, between 1976 and 1985, when the economy was experiencing serious difficulties, the fall in farm employment averaged 4 percent per annum. The results of these migrations were reflected in the changing percentage of the population involved in farming. In 1960, 42 percent of the population was engaged in agricultural work; by 1986 only about 15 percent was so employed--a marked reduction, though still twice as high as the EC average. As Spain became more industrialized, the declining share of agriculture in the economy was evidenced by its declining share of the GDP. Agriculture accounted for 23 percent of GDP in 1960; for 15 percent, in 1970; and for 5 percent, by 1986. In addition, the character of Spanish agriculture in the 1980s had changed. It had become less a way of life and more a way of making a living. Even subsistence agriculture, already in steady decline, had become increasingly market oriented.

The magnitude of the rural exodus permitted the government to undertake a program of parcel consolidation, that is, to bring together into single plots many tiny, scattered pieces of land that characterized the minifundio sector. The government managed to surpass its goal of consolidating 1 million hectares of small land holdings between 1964 and 1967; by 1981 it had brought together a total of 5 million hectares.

The decreased size of the rural work force affected Spanish agriculture because its traditionally labor-intensive practices required a large pool of cheap labor. The workers who remained in the countryside saw their wages advanced by 83.8 percent between 1960 and 1970--a rate that roughly followed the wage increases in industry. At the same time, however, increased agricultural labor costs led to the end of countless minifundios. The 1982 agrarian census recorded the disappearance of about one-half million small farms between 1962 and 1982. The resulting lack of a ready labor supply was an incentive, particularly for large landed estates, to mechanize. The number of farm tractors expanded more than tenfold between 1960 and 1983, from 52,000 to 593,000. The number of combine harvester-threshers increased almost tenfold over the same period, from 4,600 to 44,000. The process of mechanization caused agricultural productivity to grow by 3.5 percent per year between 1960 and 1978, and the productivity of farm workers grew even faster. Nonetheless, Spain's output per agricultural worker remained low. It was about half the EC average in 1985, and it surpassed only those of Greece and Portugal.

During the mid-1980s, Spanish agriculture was roughly selfsufficient in years when there were good harvests, and in nearly every year there were sizable surpluses of olive oil, citrus fruits, and wine that could be exported in quantities large enough to make it the EC's third-largest food supplier. In years of poor or average harvests, the country was obliged to import grains for use as animal fodder, but on the whole Spain was a net exporter of foodstuffs.

Spanish agriculture varied considerably with regard to regional differences in output. Some regions were distinguished by a highly inefficient variety of farming. Specialists estimated that areas dominated by minifundios would have to lose an estimated three-fourths of their farming population if they were to compete effectively with foreign producers. The variety of agriculture practiced along the Mediterranean coast or in the Rio Ebro Valley was, however, highly efficient and capable of keeping up with foreign competition.

Opinion was not united as to what EC membership would eventually mean for Spanish farmers. The EC's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which aimed at supporting most of each member state's farming sector, was expensive, and by the 1980s it was consuming well over half of the organization's revenues. If the CAP were continued, it would not be likely to have a considerable effect on Spanish agriculture, for a system of domestic price supports had long protected the weaker parts of the nation's farm sector. A change of EC policy that encouraged a single communitywide agricultural system might allow those parts of the Spanish agricultural sector that outperformed their rivals in the EC to prosper, while backward branches would probably disappear.

Regional Variation

Because the interior of Spain is dominated by semiarid plateaus and mountains subject to temperature extremes, the most productive agricultural areas in the late 1980s tend to be the coastal regions. Thus the north and the northwest, where there is a relatively mild, humid climate were the principal cornproducing and cattle-raising areas. Apples and pears were the main orchard crops in this area, and potatoes were another of its leading products.

Galicia, which consists of Spain's four westernmost provinces directly north of Portugal, had a concentrated farm population living on intensely fragmented plots. Accordingly, per capita farm income was low, compared with that of the northern provinces lying to the east, where there were fewer people and higher per capita income levels because of a more diversified economy that included industry, mining, and <"69.htm">tourism.

Catalonia, on the northeast coast, also has a climate that permits diversified agriculture. At the end of the 1980s, livestock particularly the expanding poultry industry was important in the area. Modern farming methods, including the use of tractors, were more advanced here than they were in the rest of the country. South of Catalonia, along the narrow Mediterranean coast, or Levante, was Spain's principal area of intensive, irrigated horticulture. Orange trees, orchard fruits, rice, and vegetables were produced in this region, and farther to the south, fig trees and nut trees were grown.

Andalusia, which includes all of tillable southern Spain, was another major agricultural area in the late 1980s. It was also the target of several agricultural planning programs. Although olive trees grow throughout the Mediterranean coastal region, as well as in parts of the Meseta Central (Central Plateau), they constituted the most important crop in Andalusia, particularly in the province of Jaen. Other warm-weather crops, such as cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane, were also produced in Andalusia, as were wine and table grapes.

The vast dry plateau region of central Spain contrasted sharply with the country's relatively productive areas. The production of agricultural commodities was particularly difficult in central Spain because of a lack of rainfall, a scarcity of trees and other vegetation, extremes of temperature, and harsh, rocky soil. Nevertheless, the farmers of the region grew wheat and other grains, raised sheep and goats, maintained vineyards, and carried on other agricultural activities.

An important irrigation system lies just northwest of the northern Meseta and south of the Pyrenees in the Ebro Basin, where Spain's best known vineyard district is located in the autonomous community of La Rioja. Because of its irrigation, corn, sugar beets, and orchard fruits, were grown in this area, and the Ebro Delta was one of Spain's principal rice-growing regions.

In the Balearic Islands (Spanish, Islas Baleares), the uncertain, sparse rainfall and the lack of permanent fresh water streams were somewhat compensated for by good supplies of underground water. Irrigation permitted the production of a wide range of temperate and semitropical tree corps for export, as well as enough cereals, legumes, wines, and vegetables for local consumption. Sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry were also raised on the islands.

Agriculture in the Canary Islands (Spanish, Canarias) was limited by water shortages and mountainous terrain. Nevertheless, a variety of vegetable and fruit crops were produced for local consumption, and there was a significant and exportable surplus of tomatoes and bananas.

<"58.htm">Crops
<"59.htm">Livestock
<"60.htm">Forestry
<"61.htm">Fishing

Spain

Spain - Crops

Spain has long been Western Europe's leading producer, and the world's foremost exporter, of oranges and mandarins. In the early 1960s, the production of these commodities averaged 1.8 million tons a year, and by the 1980s the annual yield averaged about 3 million tons. Grapefruit, lemons, and limes were also grown in quantity, but Spain was second to Italy among West European producers of these fruits. Spain's citrus groves, all under irrigation, were concentrated in Mediterranean coastal provinces, the Levante, primarily in a narrow coastal strip 500 kilometers in length extending from the province of Castellon to the province of Almeria. Some citrus fruit production also was found in Andalusia.

Spain's other significant orchard crops were apples, bananas, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, figs, and nuts. Except for bananas, which were grown only in the Canary Islands, and figs, which were grown mostly in the Balearic Islands, orchard crops were produced primarily in the Levante and in Catalonia. The Catalan province of Lerida was the leading producer of apples and pears, and it ranked second to Murcia in the production of peaches. Almonds, grown along the southern and the eastern coasts, emerged as another important Spanish cash crop. Almost half of the 1985 crop was exported, approximately 70 to 75 percent of it to EC countries.

The principal vegetable crops were potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cabbages, peppers, and string beans. Spain was the leading producer of onions in Western Europe, and it was second only to Italy in the production of tomatoes. These crops were concentrated in Andalusia and in the intensively cultivated and largely irrigated Mediterranean coastal areas, where small garden plots known as huertas were common. The Canary Islands also produced a significant proportion of Spain's tomatoes. Potatoes were a prominent garden crop in the northwest.

Spain was the world's leading producer and exporter of olives and olive oil, although in some years Italy showed higher production levels because Spanish harvests were notably vulnerable to insects, frost, and storm damage. Andalusia, where about one-half of the olive groves were found, is generally free of these hazards, but olives were grown in virtually every province except the humid north and the northwest. In the 1980s, olive production fluctuated wildly, ranging from 1.2 million to 3.3 million tons per year. Olive oil production was also volatile. Spain's olive production is affected by EC quotas, and past efforts to control overproduction have included the destruction of olive groves.

Though Spain boasted the world's largest area of land devoted to vineyards, much of the wine it produced was of mediocre quality. Vineyards were usually located on poor land, and good wine-making technology was often lacking. In the past, government-guaranteed prices for wine tended to encourage quantity rather than quality and alcoholic content, but programs were instituted in the 1980s to upgrade production, and surpluses of poor quality white wine were more regularly distilled into industrial alcohol. Supported by the restructuring and reconversion program initiated by the government in 1984 and by an EC assistance program, Spain's vineyard acreage continued to decline, and it was expected to fall to 100,000 hectares by 1990. Spain's 1986 wine production was estimated at 36.7 million hectoliters.

Grains covered about 10 percent of Spain's cultivated lands, and about 10 percent of that area was irrigated. Wheat and barley were generally grown in the dry areas because corn tends to crowd such crops out of areas with more abundant rainfall or irrigation. Although most of the wheat was grown in dry upland areas, some of it also was grown on valuable irrigated land. Rice was dependent on plentiful water supplies and, accordingly, was produced in the irrigated areas of the Levante, in Andalusia, and at the mouth of the Rio Ebro. Spanish farmers also grew rye, oats, and sorghum.

During the mid-1980s, the grain crop usually hit record highs of about 20 million tons, compared to 13 million ton in 1983. This meant that Spain, long a grain-importing nation, now produced a surplus of cereals. Barley had come to account for about one-half of the grain harvest and corn for about one-sixth of it, as the government encouraged production of these crops in order to reduce imports of animal feed grains. Although the wheat crop was subject to wide fluctuations because of variable weather conditions, it generally provided about one-fourth of Spain's total grain production, which exceeded the country's needs. Rice and oats constituted the rest of the national total. Some rice and wheat were exported with the help of subsidies, and analysts expected the surplus of wheat and the deficit of corn to continue into the 1990s.

To make up for the shortage of domestic feed grains, Spain became one of the world's largest importers of soybeans, and it developed a modern oilseed-crushing industry of such high productivity that surplus soybean oil became one of Spain's most important agricultural export commodities. The government encouraged domestic production of soybeans to lessen the heavy dependence on soybean imports. To limit the impact of this production on the important, labor-intensive, olive oil industry, which provided work for many field hands in southern Spain, a domestic tax system was established that maintained a two-to-one olive oil-soybean oil price ratio. The revenues derived from this system subsidized large exports of surplus soybean oil. The United States, once the main source of soybean imports, lodged protests against this policy, both bilaterally and internationally, but with little effect as of 1988.

As a further step in reducing Spanish dependence on imported soybeans, the government encouraged sunflower production. Especially favorable growing conditions, coupled with generous government support, caused sunflower seed output to expand spectacularly, and the amount of land used for its cultivation went from virtually nothing in 1960 to approximately 1 million hectares in the 1980s. Sunflower-seed meal was not the most desirable livestock feed, and therefore was not used in this way, but by the 1980s most Spanish households used the cooking oil it provided because it was less expensive than olive oil.

About 8 percent of the cultivated land in Spain was devoted to legumes and to industrial crops. Edible legumes were grown in virtually every province; French beans and kidney beans predominated in the wetter regions; and chick peas (garbanzos) and lentils, in the arid regions. However, Spain was a net importer of legumes. Although consumption of these crops declined as the standard of living improved, domestic production also fell.

Sugar beets were Spain's most important industrial crop. Annual production in the mid-1980s averaged about 7 million tons. Cultivation was widely scattered, but the heaviest production was found in the Guadalquivir Basin, in the province of Leon, and around Valladolid. A small amount of sugarcane was grown in the Guadalquivir Basin. Sugar production, controlled to meet EC quotas, was usually sufficient to meet domestic needs.

Although small quantities of tobacco, cotton, flax, and hemp were also cultivated, they were not adequate to fulfil Spain's needs. But esparto grass, a native Mediterranean fiber used in making paper, rope, and basketry, grew abundantly in the southeastern part of the country.

Spain

Spain - Livestock

Spanish meat production in 1986 totalled 2,497,000 tons. The country's farmers produced 137,000 tons of lamb and mutton, 435,000 tons of beef and veal, 765,000 tons of poultry, and 1,160,000 tons of pork. With some fluctuations, these figures were representative of Spain's meat production during the 1980s. Spanish livestock industries had experienced significant growth and modernization since the 1950s, but their output remained well behind the levels of efficiency and productivity of EC countries. The EC states' generous subsidies and their experience in the use of expensive feed grains gave their livestock industries a decided competitive advantage. As the Spanish livestock sector was increasingly concentrated in northern Spain, where minifundio agriculture predominated, many Spanish cattleraising farms were too small fully to exploit the efficiencies of modern technology. Domestic meat production failed to meet demand, making Spain a net importer of farm animals and meat products.

Pork was Spain's most important meat product, and the number of pigs grew from 7.6 million in 1970 to 11.4 million in 1985. Pigs were raised unpenned in the central uplands, but they were generally pen-fed in the northern regions. At times African Swine Fever was a serious impediment to pork exports.

Poultry raising had also expanded rapidly, and the number of chickens had doubled between 1970 and 1985, when it reached 54 million. The emphasis was on poultry production for meat rather than for eggs, because poultry, previously a minor item in the Spanish diet, had become much more popular. The most important areas for poultry raising were in the maize-growing provinces of the north and the northwest, but Catalonia, Valencia, and Andalusia were also important.

The principal cattle areas were in the north, the northwest, and, to a lesser degree, in Extremadura, Andalusia, the Rio Duero Basin, and the Murcia-Valencia lowlands. These regions provided the suitable pastures that were available only in areas with humid climates or with irrigated land. In 1986 Spain had 5 million cattle, including 1.9 million dairy cows. About 25 percent of the cattle were raised as oxen for draft purposes, and about 2 percent were bred for the bullring. The ranches of Extremadura and Andalusia specialized in raising animals of bullring quality.

The dairy industry had grown rapidly. Milk production from cows, sheep, and goats, which had stood at 5.4 million tons in 1974, reached 6.4 million tons in 1986--well over double the production level of the early 1960s. The bulk of milk products came from Galicia, Asturias, and <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Santander.htm">Santander. In 1982 the government launched a program designed to modernize milk production, to improve its quality, and to concentrate it in the northern provinces. The dairy industry was not seriously hurt by Spain's entry into the EC, although the 3 percent quota reduction for each of the years 1987 and 1988 and the 5.5 percent voluntary cutback hampered development.

Spain's sheep population remained almost unchanged at about 17 million between 1970 and 1985. Sheep rearing predominated in central Spain and the Ebro Basin. Goats were kept in much the same area, but they were more prevalent in the higher, less grassy elevations because they can survive on poorer pasture. Merino sheep, the best known breed, were probably imported from North Africa, and they were well adapted to semiarid conditions. Merino sheep, noted for their fine wool, were widely used as stock for new breeds. Other prominent breeds were the churro and the manchegan. Although raised primarily for wool, milk, and cheese, Spanish farm animals, particularly sheep, were increasingly used to satisfy the country's meat consumption needs.

Spain

Spain - Forestry

Most of the natural forests of the Iberian Peninsula had long since disappeared because of erosion and uncontrolled harvesting for firewood, timber, or the creation of pastureland. In the 1980s, about 7 million hectares, or 14 percent of the land in Spain, could be considered usable forest, although another 3.5 million hectares of scrub growth were often included in forestland statistics.

A reforestation program had been under way in Spain since 1940. The aims of the program included meeting market demand for forest products, controlling erosion, and providing seasonal employment in rural areas. Eucalyptus trees, Lombardy poplars, and a variety of conifers were emphasized because of their fast growth.

Lumber output was approximately 12.3 million cubic meters in 1986, compared with 11.8 million cubic meters in 1985. Output could conceivably triple if 5.8 million hectares of the best forestland, which accounted for 50 percent of the total woodlands area, were properly developed and managed. Existing forestation programs were inadequate, however. For example, in the 1975-84 period, the balance between reforestation and the loss of forestland as a result of fires favored the latter by about 148,000 hectares. A report issued by the Forest Progress Association reported that, by the year 2000, Spain's wood deficit could reach between 8.5 and 16.9 million cubic meters.

The value of Spain's forest products in 1985 was US$302 million. Pine trees grown in the north and the northwest as well as oak and beech trees grown in the Pyrenees accounted for most of the total. Commercial forestry products produced in Spain included cork, turpentine, and resins.

Spain was the world's second largest producer of cork after Portugal. The best quality of cork, used for bottle stoppers, was grown in Catalonia. More plentiful lower grades, which went into linoleum, insulating materials, and other industrial products, came primarily from Andalusia and Extremadura. Cork production was declining, after reaching a high in the 1970s of 97,000 tons per year; only 46,000 tons were produced in 1985, as the widening use of plastics and other cork substitutes reduced demand.

Spain

Spain - Fishing

Spain was Western Europe's leading fishing nation, and it had the world's fourth largest fishing fleet. Spaniards ate more fish per capita than any other European people, except the Scandinavians. In the mid-1980s, Spain's fishing catch averaged about 1.3 million tons a year, and the fishing industry accounted for about 1 percent of GDP. Sardines, mussels, cephalopods, cod, mackerel, and tuna, most of which came from the Atlantic Ocean, were the principal components of the catch.Fishing was particularly important in the economic life of Galicia, the principal fishing ports of which were Vigo and La Coruna on the northwest coast. Also important were Huelva, Cadiz, and Algeciras in the south, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

In the mid-1980s, the fishing fleet numbered between 13,800 and 17,500 vessels, most of which were old and small. Deep-sea vessels numbered about 2,000. Spain's 100,000 fishermen made up one-third of all EC manpower in the fishing sector, and a further 700,000 Spanish jobs depended on fishing. Prior to its admission into the EC, the undisciplined behavior of Spanish fishermen was a constant problem for the government and for other European countries. Spanish vessels were frequently charged with fishing violations in the Atlantic and the North Sea. Entry into the EC brought access to most of its waters, but it also meant catches would be sharply restricted until 1995.

Spain

Spain - INDUSTRY

Industrial Development

Spain's rapid industrial development dates from about 1960, but the underlying structure that made it possible resulted from a concerted effort by the government to reconstruct and to modernize the economy after the destruction caused by the Civil War. In the initial post-Civil War period of the early 1940s, the immediate need was for economic self-sufficiency because World War II had disrupted international trade patterns. After the war, most of the rest of Western Europe faced reconstruction problems, which left little surplus foreign capital for Spain. In addition, a political and economic boycott by the victorious Allies, the result of Franco's pro-Axis leanings, left Spain dependent on its own resources. The result was the slow, forced development of a diversified industrial sector, which would not have been economically justified if Spain had been able to trade freely with its neighbors. The high operating costs, the low rate of exports, and the inflation that consequently befell the Spanish economy made the 1940s a difficult period for the country.

In the 1950s, Spain, which had not been an original participant in the Marshall Plan, received considerable aid from the United States as part of a military basing agreement signed in 1953. Industrial development subsequently became more rapid, but it was still hampered by the country's continued isolation from the more quickly recovering economies of Western Europe. Inflation, fairly well under control in the rest of Europe, was rampant in the 1950s, and foreign exchange reserves declined because of Spain's continuing inability to export its products.

The turning point for the economy, particularly for its industrial sector, occurred in 1959, when a stabilization program went into effect. This program marked the end of Spain's economic isolation. Its outmoded system of multiple exchange rates was abandoned, and the peseta was devalued by 42.9 percent. Import duties and quotas were progressively lowered or removed, and exports were encouraged by subsidies, export credits, and other promotional efforts. The result of these initiatives was the structural transformation of Spanish industry during the 1960s. The manufacturing sector grew in real terms at an annual rate of 10.3 percent between 1958 and 1969. This growth was led by the motor vehicle and the chemical industries, both of which were stimulated by foreign capital and technology. The annual growth rates of these two key sectors were 24 and 14 percent, respectively. In the same period, labor productivity grew by nearly 8 percent per year.

Both domestic and export demand significantly contributed to the industrial growth of the 1960s and the early 1970s. The export of manufactures rose from 43.5 billion pesetas in 1960 to 191 billion pesetas in 1973, or from about 30 to 63 percent of the country's total manufacturing output.

The slowdown of the world economy caused by the increase in oil prices in the 1970s began to affect Spain in the second half of 1974. Unique among Spain's major industrial sectors, mining had been in trouble even before the price hike. It had continually experienced the slowest rate of growth during the period of expansion, and it reached its high point relatively early, in 1972. Construction was affected by the oil crises because of its relation to the booming tourist trade, which also suffered reverses in 1974. Within the manufacturing sector, textiles were particularly hard hit, and both the automobile and the shipbuilding industries faced reduced sales and cancellations. Rapidly rising unemployment and continuing inflation also indicated that the boom in Spain's industrial growth had stagnated.

The economic boom of the 1960s and the 1970s had left Spain with a large steel-producing capacity and had made it into one of the world's largest shipbuilding nations. By the mid-1970s, both of these industries experienced a production capacity glut as a result of sharply reduced global and domestic demand. Industrial retrenchment, however, was postponed during the 1970s. Sheltered to some degree from the first oil price shock by a cut in taxes on oil products--and cushioned by a high inflation rate, the persistence of negative interest rates, and protectionist tariff barriers--steel, shipbuilding, and other heavy industries continued their heavy investment in new capacity despite the downturn in world demand and the increasingly competitive international environment. Excess capacity in these industries coincided with rapidly rising labor costs and, as a consequence, with reduced competitiveness and profit margins.

One of the by-products of the country's economic difficulties was a sharp reduction in industrial employment. In addition, the 1980 recession finally forced the government to permit Spanish oil prices to rise toward world levels, while interest rates declined.

The first attempt at industrial restructuring was embodied in a 1981 law dealing with industrial reconversion. It proved difficult to implement, and a large part of the funds allocated for reconversion was siphoned off to cover losses among publicsector industrial companies. A more concerted attack was launched in 1983. The following year, a white paper on reindustrialization was issued, followed by a new law, the aims of which were to raise productivity and to restore industrial profitability by downsizing in order to restructure financial liabilities and to eliminate excess capacity and overmanning. To counterbalance these cutbacks, investment was directed toward new technologies for use in sectors that showed promise for greater growth and profit potential.

Development and expansion were encouraged in such industries as food processing, consumer electronics, defense systems, and other "growth" sectors. The industrial reconversion program was accompanied, however, by considerable worker discontent and by violent incidents. The initial financial costs of the program were high, but over time they were expected to yield considerable benefits.

By the mid-1980s, the economy had begun to emerge from a prolonged period of stagnation and crisis. The GDP commenced its expansionary growth, rising by 2.3 percent in 1984 and by a high of 4.7 percent in 1987. Meanwhile, industrial output had succeeded in shedding its sluggishness and had embarked on a vigorous cycle of growth. Industrial production grew by 0.9 percent in 1984, by 2.2 percent in 1985, by 3.5 percent in 1986, and by 4.7 percent in 1987. Observers projected that output would somewhat decrease in 1988 and in 1989, but that it would reach growth levels of 3.8 and 3.7 percent, respectively, in these years. Despite a modest decline in the mid-1980s, Spanish economic and industrial growth continued to be the strongest in Western Europe. Indicating an expanding economy, capital goods production increased by 9 percent in 1985, despite a previous decline in 1984. In the manufacturing sector, metal fabrication and the production of precision instruments increased from 1.8 percent in 1984 to 4.1 percent in 1985. Nevertheless, production increases in minerals and in chemicals were a minimal 0.2 percent in 1985, compared with 3.3 percent in 1984. Auto assembly output soared, but iron and steel production and shipbuilding experienced sharp declines. Traditional export-oriented activities, such as petroleum refining, and textile, shoe, and leather production were suffering from reduced competitiveness.

In what probably would turn out to be the peak of the economic boom, all major economic sectors posted healthy production gains in 1987. In the wake of renewed investment demand, construction grew by an estimated 10 percent, and overall industrial growth was 4.7 percent.

<"63.htm">Regional Concentration
<"65.htm">National Industrial Institute
<"64.htm">Manufacturing
<"66.htm">Mining

Spain

Spain - INDUSTRY - Regional Concentration

Spanish industry has long been concentrated in a few areas. Traditionally, the major industrial areas were in Barcelona and surrounding Catalonia, the northern region of Asturias and the Basque provinces, Madrid, and to a lesser extent the mineral-rich southwest.

Catalonia had a concentration of processing and engineering industries, rather than basic industries. It was the dominant area for food and textile industries, and it was a center for the production of electronics. Tarragona's industrial capacity, based on a large oil refinery and a petrochemical complex, was growing rapidly. Catalonia also had a highly developed machinery industry, including the country's largest automobile plant and extensive railroad foundries and workshops, as well as diesel, electrical engineering, and various industrial equipment plants.

The northern coast and the Basque region were centers of basic industry because of their coal and iron ore deposits and their port facilities, used for raw material imports. Spain's major iron and steel works were located in the northern region, as were a number of engineering industries, shipbuilding facilities, and chemical plants.

Madrid was a major manufacturing center, producing, among other items, automobiles, electrical equipment, and aircraft. Its location in the center of both Spain and the poorly endowed Meseta Central would seem to make it a poor prospect for industrial development; however, its large population, transportation facilities, and governmental role stimulated its evolution as an industrial center. By contrast, some of the country's industrially and agriculturally poorer provinces lay in a vast arc separating Madrid from the northern coast and the Catalan areas.

Spain

Spain - National Industrial Institute

Spain's industrial sector was marked by the presence of a major subsector controlled by the government. Some of this subsector was under the control of the Directorate General for State Assest (Direccion General del Patrimonio del Estado--DGPE). By far the largest component of the public sector, however, was contained within the National Industrial Institute (Instituto Nacional de Industria--INI), which, since 1968, had been under the supervision of the Ministry of Industry and Energy. The Franco regime adopted extremely protectionist policies early, and it opted for a high level of direct state intervention in the economy. When INI was founded in 1941, it was intended to create or to subsidize industries in key sectors of the economy where private enterprise alone was insufficient to achieve self-sufficiency. INI, which used both direct investments and collaboration with sources of private capital, studiously avoided any involvement in the banking sector; it especially favored industries related to national defense. INI was granted powers to take over existing enterprises and to create new ones when necessary.

Few of INI's original purposes were realized. With the signing of base agreements with the United States, the armed forces, beginning in 1953, became dependent on the United States for arms equipment. INI's efforts to fill gaps in the economy were not very effective. Instead of creating efficient new industries, it tended to establish inefficient ones and to hamper the activities of private enterprise. Political favorites of the regime were permitted to unload badly run, deficit-producing firms on INI, and many of its top positions were political sinecures.

Efforts were periodically undertaken to bring INI more into line with the rest of Spanish industry, and, as a result, a more realistic approach toward the financing of industrial companies was instituted. Government subsidies were permitted to cover the deficits of those INI firms that were considered to have incurred losses unavoidably. For example, the coal-mining conglomerate, Empresa Nacional Hulleras del Norte (HUNOSA), which was set up by INI in 1967 to reorganize the coal industry, was still losing money in the late 1980s. In general, however, firms were expected to become economically viable, although many did not.

A policy change took place in 1974, however. It was decided that INI, rather than remaining in the background of the industrial sector, was to serve as the linchpin of basic industries, such as ironmaking, steelmaking, and petrochemical production, and that it was to become the prime promoter of development in high technology areas, such as electronics and aircraft manufacture.

By the mid-1980s, the companies directly controlled by INI formed the single largest industrial group in the country, responsible for 10 percent of Spain's GDP and for the employment of 200,000 workers. INI directed more than 60 firms--sometimes having 100 percent ownership in them--as well as more than 100 of their subsidiaries. INI firms produced all of the country's aluminum; most of its ships; much of its steel, other metals, paper and pulp, and transportation equipment; and many of its commercial vehicles. It also controlled most of the country's two largest airlines: Iberia, Lineas Aereas de Espana; and Aviacion y Comercio (AVIACO).

A restructuring and investment program was launched in 1984 and 1985 to reduce INI's huge losses and to refocus industrial investment and expansion. The overhaul was prompted in part by a need to end INI's reliance on payments from the central government, which would no longer be permitted when Spain completed its transition into the EC. The program had some successes. In 1983 INI posted a record loss of 204 billion pesetas, but by the late 1980s the restructuring program had steadily reduced the shortfall. In its best performance since the late 1970s, the loss was cut to 45 billion pesetas (US$421 million) in 1987. INI's improved performance was partly the result of the 1985 sale of the auto assembly company, Sociedad Espanola de Automoviles de Turismo (SEAT), which had lost 37 billion pesetas that year. The INI concerns that registered profits were the national airline, Iberia, the electric power utilities, food processing plants, and enterprises producing electronics, aluminum, paper, and fertilizers. Among the leading contributors to the deficit were Construcciones Aeronauticas (CASA), Empresa Nacional de Santa Barbara de Industrias Militares (Santa Barbara), and the coal company, HUNOSA.

INI's losses had traditionally been the largest in the "rust belt" industries--steelmaking, shipbuilding, and mining. In each of these areas, the restructuring program downgraded INI's large holdings through personnel cutbacks and the closing down of some old, inefficient plants, production yards, and mines. Investments were undertaken to upgrade industrial facilities, such as those used in a new continuous casting plant scheduled to begin operations by mid-1989. The large steel company, Empresa Nacional Siderurgica (ENSIDESA), was expected to reach the financial break-even point by the end of 1988. In addition, the shipbuilding industry gradually was beginning to reemerge from its protracted slump.

Although INI intended to liberate itself from much of its customary heavy reliance on government subsidies, massive government support would continue to sustain the ailing shipyard and coal-mining industries. Government allocations in 1987 amounted to 150 billion pesetas (US$1.4 billion). Aid to government-supported firms was designed to keep them operating in order to maintain employment.

Of particular note in INI's renovation was its partial privatization. In the mid-1980s, INI sold a 51 percent interest in SEAT to Volkswagen (SEAT lost US $231 million in 1984). Minority interests, ranging from 25 to 45 percent, were being sold in the more profitable public-sector companies through public stock offerings. Shares in two electric power companies and a pulp-paper firm were offered, and observers expected that shares in Iberia and in two electric power companies would be offered in 1989. INI spokesmen, however, were quick to point out that such developments should not be interpreted as an ideological or policy-oriented commitment to privatization. They were conceived of as part of an effort to improve management of public-sector companies and to use private-sector resources to invest in modernization and expansion. The funds gained from the sale of stock in INI companies were to be used for strengthening them financially, for expanding existing programs, and for embarking on new investment strategies.

Another part of INI's restructuring strategy called for a major expansion of research and development. In the late 1980s, 1.6 percent of INI's revenues went to research and development, which was well above the overall Spanish corporate average of 0.5 percent, but far below that of foreign technologically oriented companies. The goal was to bring research and development expenditures up to 3 percent of INI's income by 1992. The plan also emphasized training and retraining for both white-collar and blue-collar workers.

Spain

Spain - Manufacturing

Iron and Steel

Spain's steel industry was located in the north at Vizcaya, Cantabria, and Asturias, and in the south at Sagunto, near Valencia. Though the steel industry had had an important presence in Spain since the second half of the nineteenth century, it had expanded greatly during the boom years of the 1960s and the early 1970s. Production had gone from 1.9 million tons in 1960 to 11.1 million tons in 1975, making the country the fifth largest steel producer in Europe and the thirteenth largest in the world. By the late 1970s, however, a worldwide glut in steelmaking capacity and the domestic economic slump had led to a severe crisis in the industry. Thereafter, the Spanish steel industry experienced an extensive contraction, not only in production capacity, but also in the size of its labor force.

Despite a 50 percent drop in domestic steel consumption, production remained at about 13 million tons per year during the early 1980s, and it reached a high of 14 million tons in 1985. High production levels were maintained through extensive exports; the two largest steel producers, the state firm ENSIDESA, and the Basque company, Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, were among the nation's most important exporters after the large automobile companies. Both of these companies and most other steel companies operated with heavy losses, however.

Membership in the EC and in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) committed Spain to cutting back its iron and steel output and to reducing its overall capacity. Steel output declined almost 16 percent in 1986, to 11.8 million tons, and it fell to a slightly lower level in 1987. The government's efforts at restructuring the steel industry continued during the later 1980s with the creation of Acenor, which consolidated the producers of special grades of steel and became Western Europe's sixth largest firm of this kind. The large blast furnaces at Sagunta were shut down, and the government, which already controlled ENSIDESA and Altos Hornos del Mediterraneo, both INI firms, took a 40 percent interest in Altos Hornos de Vizcaya.

Automobile Assembly

The greatest success story of Spain's economic expansion was the rise of its large motor vehicle assembly industry. Although it started up only in 1950, by the early 1970s it had become the country's second most important industry in the manufacturing sector, and in the mid-1980s it was the most important producer of exports. Automobile production reached 38,000 units in 1960 and increased sixfold between 1965 and 1976. By the 1980s, Spain manufactured an average of well over a million cars per year, and in 1987 it produced 1.4 million vehicles. A good part of this production was exported. In 1985, for example, about 800,000 vehicles, out of a total of 1.2 million, went abroad. By 1986 Spain's three largest exporters were Ford Espana, General Motors Espana, and SEAT. In addition to the manufacture of personal automobiles, Spain produced substantial numbers of commercial vehicles. In the mid-1980s, commercial vehicle production ranged from 130,000 to 300,000 units per year, and annual tractor production levels stood at about 16,000 units.

Spain's motor vehicle industry was located in many parts of the country. SEAT began its operations in Barcelona, while General Motors Espana was located in the Zaragoza and Cadiz areas, Ford Espana was near Valencia, and a number of companies were placed around Madrid.

Subsidiaries of foreign firms dominated the automobile industry. In 1986, Fabricacion de Automoviles, SA (FASA Renault), with about 20,000 employees, was Spain's largest automotive company, as measured by revenues. SEAT--at one time a Spanish firm, but, since the mid-1980s, owned by Volkswagen--ranked second, followed by Ford Espana, General Motors Espana, and Citr�en Hispania. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, both Ford and General Motors became major domestic automobile manufacturers. Other foreign firms involved in the motor vehicle industry included Peugeot, Mercedes Benz, Land Rover, and Japanese firms such as Nissan, Suzuki, and Yamaha.

In the late 1980s, Japanese investors sought to use Spain as a bridgehead to penetrate the West European market and to follow the example of Ford Espana and General Motors Espana, which exported about 75 percent of their output. Not all firms worked from this premise, however. Renault and Peugeot-Talbot began operations with the intention of catering to a highly protected Spanish home market.

The reviving economy of the second half of the 1980s was reflected by a strong growth in domestic demand, including that for consumer durables. Sales of new cars rose from 629,000 units in 1985 to 860,875 in 1987, an increase of about 37 percent. In accordance with the EC accession agreement, automobile imports were entering Spain in increasing numbers, and they were securing a large share of the market. In 1987, approximately 211,000 foreign-made cars were sold in Spain, an increase of 101 percent over 1986; imported automobiles increased their market share from 16 percent in 1986 to 25 percent in 1987.

Despite this increase in the sale of foreign cars, Spain's motor vehicle industry remained strong. Investments had been made in industrial robots in order to enhance productivity, and in the late 1980s labor costs were highly competitive with those of foreign producers. In late 1988, the Economist reported that a Spanish auto worker earned about half as much as his West German counterpart. Observers regarded Spain as well positioned to emerge as the EC's market leader in small car production.

Shipbuilding

During the economic expansion of the 1960s and the early 1970s, Spain became one of the world's leaders in shipbuilding, ranking third in 1974. Its shipbuilding industry was one of the few major industries in the country that made no use of foreign capital. Shipbuilding, both in Spain and among other shipbuilding nations, was however, one of the main casualties of the post-1974 energy crisis; following a sharp drop in orders in the late 1970s, the shipbuilding sector was in serious difficulty. Among Spain's leading industries, it was one of those most affected by production cutbacks, closings, and reductions in personnel. The number of shipbuilding yards able to build steel-hulled vessels declined from forty-three in 1975 to thirty, ten years later.

In the mid-1980s, more than half Spain's shipbuilding capacity was located in Cadiz; other major shipyards in the south were at Seville (Spanish, Sevilla) and Cartagena. In the north, important shipyards were located at El Ferrol del Caudillo and in the province of Vizcaya. The shipbuilding industry was dominated by two state-owned firms, both belonging to the INI group, and in 1986 each had about 12,000 employees. One company, Empresa Nacional Bazan de Construcciones Navales Militares (generally referred to as Bazan), constructed military vessels. The other, Astilleros Espanoles, SA (AESA), constructed civilian ships. The next three largest firms employed a total of 4,000 persons.

After years of decline and heavy losses, in 1987 the Spanish shipbuilding industry turned the corner, showing strong gains in the construction of vessels from small- to medium-size. In 1987 deliveries totaled 340,000 compensated gross registered tons, 90,000 tons more than in 1985 or 1986. Solid increases in foreign orders were exceeded by domestic demand. Rigorous restructuring measures undertaken in the 1980s were believed to have prepared the industry for the upsurge in orders on the world market that was expected in the early 1990s.

Chemical Industry

Since the 1970s, the chemical industry had been one of Spain's largest, and it continued to grow in the 1980s. By the mid-1980s, it accounted for about 7 percent of the Spanish work force and 8 percent of the country's total industrial production. With its share of exports at about 10 percent of the national total, it was the third-largest export industry. In 1985 chemical exports stood at US$1.8 billion, increasing by a further 16 percent in 1986. The Spanish chemical industry had received a substantial amount of foreign investment capital and new technology, and in 1987 about 30 percent of its output came from foreign-owned companies. Although many of it's raw materials, including those for petrochemical production, had to be imported, the industry benefited from Spain's deposits of pyrites, potash, and mercury. The largest components of the chemical industry were those producing plastics, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, rubber manufactures, fertilizers, paints, and dyes. All of these areas registered substantial gains in the 1980s.

As part of its policy of merging Spanish firms into larger entities better able to compete with foreign companies, the government prodded the country's largest chemical firm, Rio Tinto Explosives, to merge with the second-largest such enterprise, Cros, in 1988. By the time the merger occurred, sizable portions of both companies were controlled by the Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), which managed both public and private Kuwaiti funds. The fertilizer interests of the two companies were combined to form a new company, Fosforico Espanol, and Rio Tinto ceded its considerable defense interests.

Textiles and Footwear

Since the early nineteenth century, the Spanish textile industry has been concentrated in Catalonia. Though an established industry, it lacked the dynamism of many of the newer industries and had the least impressive growth rate among Spain's manufacturing industries. It was an industry that suffered from excessive fragmentation, and, although its operations were export-based, it depended on a protected domestic market. Spain's entry into the EC removed tariff barriers to textile imports, and the industry generally found itself in difficulty. Foreign investors showed little interest in the Spanish textile industry, and in the late 1980s it was being subjected to extensive industrial modernization for greater efficiency.

The Spanish shoe-manufacturing industry was concentrated chiefly in the Valencia area and in the Balearic Islands. According to a Spanish government study, 90 percent of the country's 2,100 shoe factories had fewer than 50 employees, and a large part of the industry operated in the underground economy.

Spain

Spain - Mining

Though Spain's mining sector, including the coal-mining industry, employed only 80,000 persons and was responsible for only about 1 percent of the country's GDP in the late 1980s, Spain was an important producer of minerals. It was one of the world's leading producers of slate and strontium. It ranked second in the production of granite and marble; third, in pyrites and natural sodium sulfate; sixth, in fluorspar; seventh, in kyanite and other refractory minerals; eighth, in magnesite and potash; ninth, in tantalite; and tenth, in anthracite, asphalt, and bentonite.

Spanish mineral production was of particular significance to the EC because Spain was its sole producer of mercury, natural sodium sulfate, and tantalite. Moreover, Spain mined approximately 9 percent of all EC copper, 86 percent of its antimony, 65 percent of its gold and pyrite, 47 percent of its silver, 41 percent of its lead and magnesite, 38 percent of its iron ore and tungsten, and 28 percent of its fluorspar and zinc. In addition to mining, Spain was an important processor of raw minerals, both those produced domestically and those imported from abroad. Although Spain was the most self-sufficient member of the EC with regard to minerals, imports were needed to meet about 30 percent of its needs.

In the mid-1980s, Spain's mining industry suffered from the depressed state of the world minerals market, and the production of most substances had declined. The drop in the value of the dollar, the dominant currency in the mineral trade, further reduced the sector's profits, which had already been damaged by declining sales. Spanish production of copper, tin, and wolfram all declined by more than 75 percent in 1987. The production of iron, pyrites, and fluorspar also dropped significantly in the same year. Zinc, potassium salts, uranium, and lead production remained steady during this period, however.

Spain

Spain - ENERGY

Spain is poor in energy resources, with the exception of coal. Rapid industrial growth has intensified the problems caused by insufficient oil reserves, dwindling supplies of easily accessible high-quality coal, and inadequate water for power generation. Until the early 1980s, Spain increasingly depended upon imported petroleum, and overall energy consumption continued to grow in the 1973-79 period. Following adjustment to a slower rate of economic growth and to the changed energy market of the 1970s, Spanish energy consumption declined in the early 1980s.

The National Energy Plan (Plan Energetico Nacional--PEN), the basic statement of official energy policy, was first formulated in 1978. Revised in 1983 to cover the 1984-93 period, the new PEN aimed at a rationalization of energy consumption and a reduction in Spain's dependence on imported energy. It pressed, in addition, for a reorganization of the oil industry and for a financial reorganization of the electricity industry. In contrast to the 1978-87 plan, it reduced the role of nuclear energy.

Petroleum

Although oil continued to be Spain's major source of energy, it had diminished in importance significantly since 1973. Oil consumption grew steadily between 1973 and 1979, reaching 50 million tons in that last year, but by 1985 it had declined to 39 million tons. Oil accounted for two-thirds of the country's primary energy requirements throughout the 1970s, but by the mid1980s the figure had dropped to just over half. In 1985 alone, Spanish industry saved 40 billion pesetas (US$260 million) by replacing 500,00 tons of oil consumption with coal and natural gas.

In 1985 Mexico, responsible for 19.7 percent of Spain's petroleum imports, was the largest single supplier of Spain's energy needs, and in the mid-1980s Latin American countries provided Spain with about one-quarter of its imported oil. Africa's share--Nigeria being the most important supplier-- dropped from 36.5 percent in 1985 to 29.3 percent in 1987. Middle Eastern countries provided 27.4 percent in 1985 and 29.6 percent in 1987. Western Europe's share rose from 10.6 percent in 1985 to 16.5 percent in 1987. Efforts were under way to lessen Spain's dependence on Middle Eastern oil and to increase imports from Mexico.

In the 1980s, imported petroleum entered Spain via eight ports. The three largest, in terms of vessel capacity, were Algeciras (330,000 deadweight tons), Malaga (330,000 tons), and Cartagena (260,000 tons).

Spain possessed a small domestic oil production capability that yielded only 1.6 million tons in 1987. Despite a sizable exploration effort, only a few small fields and two medium-sized ones were discovered. The Casablanca oil field, discovered in 1983, yielded 90 percent of Spain's domestic oil production in 1987, but it was not large enough to offset an overall decline in Spanish production. The fall in oil prices in the 1980s further reduced the country's exploration efforts.

The Spanish oil industry imported and refined foreign crude petroleum; it distributed petrochemical products within Spain; and, in the mid-1980s, it exported about 10 million tons of finished petroleum products per year.

As with some other sectors of the Spanish economy, the domestic oil industry had been brought under state control. Distribution of petroleum products had been in the hands of the state monopoly, Compania Arrendataria del Monopolio de Petroleos (CAMPSA), since 1927, and large portions of the shipping and refining system were state owned. To rationalize the petroleum industry and to make it able to withstand foreign competition, the National Institute for Hydrocarbons (Instituto Nacional de Hidrocarburos--INH) was formed in 1981 in order to direct CAMPSA and those parts of the oil, gas, and petrochemical industry supervised by INI. By the mid-1980s, INH was responsible for more than 1 percent of the Spanish GDP, and it claimed 20,000 employees. To prepare for Spain's entry into the EC, after which state monopolies were required to be phased out, all of INH's holdings, with the exception of the state gas company, Empresa Nacional del Gas (ENAGAS), were placed under a new holding company in the late 1980s. The company, Repsol, which had a stock market listing, was gradually to allow a greater role for private capital in the petroleum industry. By 1988 Repsol had become Western Europe's seventh largest petroleum company, and its management planned to continue to control about half of the Spanish market once that market was fully opened to foreign firms in 1992. EC membership rendered CAMPSA's future uncertain, for it would no longer be allowed its distribution monopoly. The Treaty of Accession that brought Spain into the EC stipulated that specific amounts of nine groups of petroleum products from foreign suppliers would have access to the Spanish market. In 1986 these products were to have a 5 percent share of the domestic market--a share that was to increase by 20 percent (of this 5 percent) each year thereafter.

Coal

Spain's coal reserves are found primarily in Asturias, with smaller deposits located near southwestern Seville, Cordoba, and Badajoz, and in northeastern Catalonia and Aragon (Spanish, Aragon). Most of the country's lignite is located in Galicia. Domestic coal is generally of poor quality, and, because of the structure of Spanish deposits, it is more expensive than imported coal. In 1967 HUNOSA, a state holding company under the control of INI, was founded to direct most of Spain's coal mining, and it gradually took over the larger coal companies.

Higher oil prices have spurred domestic coal production. Annual production in the early 1970s amounted to about 10 million tons of coal and 3 million tons of lignite. By the mid-1980s, the industry produced 15 million tons of coal and 23 million tons of lignite annually. This higher rate of production was insufficient to meet domestic needs because coal had come to supply about 25 percent of Spain's needed energy, compared with about 16 percent in the early 1970s. About 5 million tons of foreign coal were imported per annum.

Over the years, there had been little change in patterns of coal consumption. Hard coal, used mainly for the generation of electricity, accounted for 65 percent of total demand. The steel and cement industries were the two next-largest consumers.

In line with the energy rationalization policies set by PEN, the government sought to increase the efficiency of the coalmining sector by closing down high-cost mines and by providing financial aid for the industry's modernization. To encourage the cement and other industries to convert from oil to coal, the government allowed them to import duty-free coal. The government also made efforts to substitute the use of oil for coal in urban areas.

Natural Gas

In order to reduce Spain's dependence on imported oil, PEN encouraged natural gas consumption. Efforts to redirect the use of fuels were successful, and in the 1980s the consumption of natural gas increased faster than that of any other fuel. Total natural gas demand doubled between 1973 and 1984, and in 1987 it accounted for 3.85 percent of all energy consumption. Energy planners hoped to increase this share to 7 percent by 1992.

Domestic production of natural gas began in 1984 with the development of the Serrablo field; two years later the Gaviota field went into operation. In 1987 domestic production supplied about one-sixth of Spain's natural gas consumption, and observers anticipated that its share might rise to as much as one-third by 1990. Domestic production shortfalls were taken up by imports from Algeria and Libya under long-term contracts. In 1988 it was agreed that Spain's gradually expanding gas pipeline network would be connected to the European network, and Norwegian gas was scheduled to begin arriving in Spain in 1992.

Electricity

Although Spain's mountainous terrain would appear to be wellsuited to hydroelectric power production, the scarcity of water limited such potential and was the principal reason for Spain's heavy dependence on thermal power. In 1986 only 27.2 percent of the country's electricity came from hydroelectric plants, while 50.6 percent came from conventional thermal plants, and 22.2 percent came from nuclear plants. The most important fuel for the production of electricity was coal, which generated about 40 percent of the total. In 1987 the production of electricity amounted to 132,000 million kilowatt hours--about six times the amount produced in 1960 and twice the production level of 1970. The total installed capacity of the predominantly privately owned electrical system was about 40 gigawatts--an amount large enough to meet the country's needs and to allow some exports. In the second half of the 1980s, the growth of the demand for electrical power was less than anticipated, and Spain had a supply adequate to last until the mid-1990s. The Spanish level of per capita electrical power consumption was among the lowest in Western Europe, surpassing only those of Greece and Portugal.

A key element in the future of Spain's electrical power industry was the role to be assigned to nuclear power. Nuclear power was an important factor because of scarce petroleum reserves, the limited potential for hydroelectric power production, and the presence of significant uranium deposits. The first PEN, drawn up in 1978, emphasized the role that nuclear power would play in meeting the nation's ever-increasing need for electricity. The revised PEN of 1984 postponed the opening of the Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant for political reasons, and it continued the mothballing of three other nuclear plants. The government decided, nonetheless, that if the demand for electricity increased by more than 3 percent, work on one of the plants might be restarted. The new PEN also emphasized the benefits of increased natural gas consumption.

Spain

Spain - Banking

By the late 1980s, the Spanish banking system had been undergoing sweeping changes for some time. Its structure was largely a throwback to the post-Civil War period of the Franco era, when Spanish private banks played a leading role in financing the development of industry. As financial backers of the Nationalist cause, they had won Franco's confidence and gratitude, and they were given a relatively free hand during the reconstruction period. With the adoption of an economic policy that emphasized self-sufficiency and barred foreign investment capital and banking competition, their role was strengthened. It has been estimated that, by 1965, the five leading private banks controlled over 50 percent of Spain's capital. Their influence extended not only to the private sector, but also to such autonomous institutions as INI and the state railroads. Subsequently, as industry grew stronger, many of the banks' equity holdings were sold to the public through stock exchanges. The banks, however, continued to play a vital role in providing new funds for industry.

Supervision of all Spanish financial institutions rested with the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Commerce. Subordinate to this ministry, and responsible for overseeing the country's banking system, was the country's central bank, the Bank of Spain. Formed in 1847, and granted the sole right to issue currency in 1874, the bank was nationalized by the Bank Reform Law of 1962. In addition to supervising the rest of the banking system and setting reserve requirements, it carried out the government's monetary policy through open market operations, and it oversaw foreign exchange along with the Directorate General for Foreign Transactions. In 1977 the Bank of Spain had helped set up the Deposit Guarantee Fund, which protected deposits in troubled banking institutions.

Of the three main groups of banks in the Spanish banking system--private banks, savings banks, and official credit institutions--private banks were the most important. In 1962 private banks were divided into commercial banks and industrial banks. The latter had the right to invest a higher proportion of their resources in equity holdings than the former, and they specialized in industrial investments. Commercial banks, which were larger and more numerous, served the general public; they were the principal source of short-term credit for the private sector, though they also competed for long-term loans. By the late 1980s, the distinction between the two kinds of banks had lost much of its meaning, for each had gradually been allowed to operate in the other's area of specialization.

Although in the second half of the 1980s Spain had about 100 private banks--a quarter of which were industrial banks--the field had long been dominated the Big Seven, seven large commercial institutions: Banco Espanol de Credito or, as it was more commonly known, Banesto; Banco Central; Banco de Bilbao; Banco Popular Espanol; Banco de Santander; Banco de Vizcaya; and Banco Hispano Americano. By the 1980s, these banks had direct or indirect control of approximately 80 percent of the country's banking resources.

The leading banks controlled huge industrial portfolios, by far the largest in Spain. The market value of these holdings was not known, but analysts estimated that Banesto possessed about US$3 billion, and Banco Central, about US$1 billion. These large Spanish banks were present in virtually every area of finance. Beyond their industrial holdings, they also possessed extensive retail networks. Because Spain did not have an adequate pension fund system, many Spaniards invested their savings in order to provide for their retirement. Consequently, there were 5 million retail investors among Spain's 39 million people, the highest proportion in Europe.

Banking can be said to be the last redoubt of Francoist economic autarchy. Banks had grown during the Franco period by borrowing cheaply from their customers and then selling their services at huge margins. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, when a number of banks found themselves in serious difficulties, the government, for the first time, permitted their purchase by foreign banks. When it became clear that the more sophisticated foreign banks were rapidly making inroads into the traditional preserves of the large Spanish banks, however, the government closed the door to their further influx. Foreign banks were no longer to be allowed entry into Spain before the 1992 deadline set by the EC integration agreement, so that the Spanish banking system would have the maximum amount of time to modernize.

By the second half of the 1980s, Spanish banks were still not internationally competitive. The banks tended to be greatly overstaffed, and they possessed far too many branches, compared with their West European counterparts. Only in Belgium were there more branches per capita. In addition, the inadequate investments of Spanish banks were compensated for financially by the overpricing of services for bank clienteles. An EC report of the late 1980s indicated that, in order for the costs of financial services in member states to be harmonized, those of the Spanish banking system would have to be cut by 34 percent. In comparison, those of French banks would have to be reduced by 24 percent, and those of British banks, by 13 percent.

The pressure to revamp Spain's banking industry was, therefore, very great. Mergers were undertaken with the government's encouragement in order to create large Spanish financial holdings that could adequately compete with their European rivals. Although an attempted merger of the Banco de Bilbao and Banesto fell through in 1987, in early 1988 a successful union took place between the Banco de Bilbao and the Banco de Vizcaya. This merger resulted in the creation of Western Europe's thirty-second largest financial institution, the Banco Bilbao-Vizcaya. In 1988 the planned merger of the two largest private banks, Banco Central and Banesto, fell through, but analysts expected that, before 1992, the Big Six of the Spanish banking industry might, through various mergers, become the Big Three or the Big Four.

The second major group in the banking system consisted of savings banks, which predominated in rural areas that could not attract branches of the leading private banks. These banks did not come under the control of the Bank of Spain until 1971, having previously had their own official governing body, the Credit Institute for Savings Banks. Heretofore, they had generally accounted for about one-quarter of total lending in the private sector. Since the late 1970s, savings banks have raised their share of total national deposits from 34 percent to 45 percent--a feat that was accomplished despite severe restrictions. In the mid-1980s, these restrictions were gradually being relaxed. For example, barriers that limited their operations to specific areas or regions were lifted in June 1988, and by 1992 they were to be free to open up branches anywhere in the country. In terms of deposits, the Barcelona-based Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros de Cataluna y Baleares, popularly known as La Caixa, was the country's largest savings bank. Another large savings bank was La Caja de Madrid. After the relevant restrictions were lifted, a large-scale merger process commenced among savings banks. This trend appeared likely to become a substantial factor in the country's savings banks' operations.

Legally, savings banks were nonprofit institutions, but in reality they were quite profitable; in 1987, for example, they were more profitable than rival commercial banks. One reason for this was that savings banks were self-financed foundations without stockholders. The seventy-seven savings banks operating in the late 1980s lent mostly to families and to small and medium-sized businesses.

The third leg of the Spanish banking industry consisted of official credit institutions, each with a specialized sphere of influence. These credit institutions were under the control of the Directorate General for State Assets (Direccion General del Patrimonio del Estado--DGPE), and they were supervised by the Official Credit Institute (Instituto de Credito Oficial--ICO), which received funds from the state that were then lent to the credit institutions. The largest of these was the Industrial Credit Bank (Banco de Credito Industrial), which specialized in general industrial loans. The Mortgage Bank of Spain (Banco Hipotecario de Espana) provided mortgage loans for urban and rural properties. The Agricultural Credit Bank (Banco de Credito Agricola) provided credit for agriculture and related sectors. Provincial and municipal administrative bodies were served by the Local Credit Bank (Banco de Credito Local).

Also under the ICO, but only partially so, was the Overseas Trade Bank (Banco Exterior de Espana), which had been founded in 1923 to promote exports. More than half the bank's capital was in private hands. In addition to its participation in foreign trade, it competed with domestic commercial banks and ranked just below the former Big Seven in terms of its size. Like the official credit institutes, the Overseas Trade Bank was among those bodies belonging to the DGPE.

Analysts expected the increasing financial liberalization of the Spanish banking system to affect the status and the functions of the country's public banks. The freeing of funds tied up in government-required investments would eliminate the "privileged circuits" through which funds at low interest rates were normally channeled into such investments. In mid-1988 legislation was being prepared that would redefine the role of publicly owned banks by converting them into subsidiaries of the ICO and by forcing them to finance themselves at market rates. To assist them in adapting to these new circumstances, a period of gradual adjustment lasting as long as fifteen years was being considered, during which they could continue to depend on financing from the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Commerce.

Spain

Spain - Tourism

Although historical sites and unique cultural features had always made Spain attractive to foreign visitors, the tourist boom that began in the mid-1950s was based primarily on the recreational assets of the Mediterranean seashore areas. The country had fewer than 1 million tourists in 1950, but the number rose steadily, reaching more than 34 million in 1973 and 50.5 million in 1987.

The tourist boom had a significant, and not wholly beneficial, impact on the Spanish economy. Though it was a welcome source of foreign exchange and created new employment opportunities, it also diverted capital investment and construction efforts away from more stable economic activities to a sector subject to seasonal fluctuations, the whims of fashion, and worldwide economic conditions.

Nonetheless, the importance of tourism to the Spanish economy was substantial. Net tourist receipts averaged about 5 percent of GDP in the early 1970s, but in 1987 that figure rose to almost 10 percent, as receipts rose to US$14.7 billion--more than enough to cover the country's merchandise trade deficit. On a net basis, Spain's tourist revenues were the highest in the world. The United States had higher gross revenues, but its tourist expenditures exceeded revenues by a considerable margin.

Spain's 50.5 million foreign visitors in 1987 constituted 12 percent more than had come in 1986. Most of them came from the EC, with France, Portugal, Britain, and West Germany leading the way. American tourists accounted for less than 2 percent of the total, but they spent more per person than their European counterparts making the United States the second source of tourist receipts after Britain. Tourism was projected to remain strong in 1988, with a 5 percent increase in visitors. Tourist sector spokespersons were more concerned about raising tourist spending, however, than with increasing the number of visitors. The average expenditure per foreign visitor increased only 2.4 percent in 1987.

The most popular resort areas were the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coastal areas. The Balearic Islands generally accounted for about 34 percent of the number of nights foreign tourists spent in Spain; the Costa Brava and the Costa Dorada, stretching from the French border through Barcelona to Tarragona, accounted for 22 percent; and the Costa del Sol and Costa de la Luz, extending from Almeria on the southern--or Mediterranean-- coast to Ayamonte on the Atlantic coast at the Portuguese border, accounted for 12 percent. The distant Canary Islands attracted 13 percent of Spain's foreign guests, and land-locked Madrid was host to 8 percent. Cultural festivals were instituted in Santander and Madrid in an effort to increase the attractiveness of these cities. The seaside resorts continued to dominate the tourist industry, however, despite considerable government effort to stimulate interest in visiting historical and cultural sites.

Although areas on the northern coast facing the Bay of Biscay were accessible to the rest of Europe and had good weather in the summer, when most Europeans and Americans took their vacations, their share of the tourist trade was only about 3 percent. San Sebastian was the center of the tourist industry on the Bay of Biscay, and nearby towns were also popular, but their allure was limited by tourist apprehensions over continuing political turbulence and violence in the Basque region.

Tourist centers farther to the west, on the Cantabrian coast and in Galicia, were not so commercially developed as the better known Basque or Mediterranean resorts. Accordingly, their appeal to tourists was their traditional Spanish flavor. They also provided visitors with less elaborate, but also less expensive, accommodations.

Like most nations dependent on tourist trade, Spain was concerned about the underutilization, and sometimes overutilization, of facilities that was caused by seasonal variation in weather. These variations caused marked differentials in monthly tourist revenues and international trade receipts. July and August were the most active months; February was the least active. Efforts were made to develop winter sports facilities in order to increase the number of tourists visiting Spain during the colder months; however, competition from France, Switzerland, and Austria, where snow conditions were more reliable, constituted a formidable obstacle to success in this area.

Tourism was recognized, even before World War II, as an important economic activity worthy of government support. A chain of official hotels, known as tourist inns (paradores), was initiated at historical sites in the 1920s during the Primo de Rivera regime, and it was extended during the postwar years. Tourist promotion was a function of the Ministry of Interior until 1951, when the Ministry of Information and Tourism was created. In the late 1980s, the Ministry of Transportation, Tourism, and Communications took on this responsibility. The National Tourist Company, a state-owned enterprise, was engaged in the construction of hotels and tourist complexes.

Tourist promotion encompassed such routine activities as advertising and distributing maps, information folders, and lists of accommodations and shops. In addition, tourist offices were maintained in major foreign cities in order to encourage, to advise, and to assist people planning visits to Spain. Within the country, tourist assistance was provided by a network of more than seventy local tourist information offices found in all major cities and sites of interest.

Although most tourist accommodations were privately owned and operated, there was considerable government supervision of the industry. All restaurants and hotels were inspected, classified, and controlled by the Ministry of Transportation, Tourism, and Communications. Prices for meals and accommodations were controlled, and establishments catering to tourists were required to maintain complaint books which were intended to help the ministry's inspectors identify any shortcomings. In addition, the government operated a number of accommodations. These establishments included the above-mentioned paradores, many of which were converted castles, palaces, or other buildings of historical or cultural interest. Government-operated inns (albergues) were maintained on highways away from larger cities and towns, and many areas had hostels (hosterias), which were government-operated restaurants featuring traditional regional dishes. The ministry also maintained a number of mountain lodges (refugios).

<"http://accommodations-travelnow.com/europe/spain/">Accommodations in Spain

Spain

Spain - FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS

Spain has had a long legacy of tariff protectionism and economic isolationism, and until the 1960s it remained outside the West European and international economic mainstreams. Spain's effort in the late 1980s to accelerate its integration into the EC customs and economic structures resulted in a drastic accommodation to international and West European trading standards.

When Spain embarked on a period of economic modernization in the 1960s, its foreign trade, as a percentage of overall economic activity, was below the average for other major West European countries. Exports and imports amounted to about 16.5 percent of the Spanish GDP in 1960. During the 1960s, Spain's foreign trade increased at an annual rate of about 15 percent; in the 1970s, it grew at an even higher rate. After the oil price increases of the 1970s slowed the world economy, Spanish trade expanded less rapidly. By 1984, after a period of sluggish growth, foreign trade made up about 25 percent of the country's GDP. According to the Economist, in 1987 Spanish imports and exports, respectively, accounted for 16.8 and 11.7 percent of the nation's GDP. These figures indicated an increasing linkage with the world economy, but even in the 1980s foreign trade played a smaller role in Spain's economy than it did in most other European countries.

Spain has not had a positive trade balance since 1960, when exports of US$725 million exceeded imports by US$4 million. In 1961 imports were about one-third larger than exports--a quantitative relationship that, for the most part, has held steady ever since then, despite enormous increases in Spanish exports. In the mid-1980s, Spain's trade deficits ranged from just over US$4 billion in 1984 and in 1985 to US$13 billion in 1987, when merchandise imports amounted to US$49.1 billion, and exports, to US$34.2 billion. A booming economy with strong domestic demand was responsible for a surge of imports in 1987-- an increase of 25 percent, compared to 1986.

Spain's chronic trade deficits were often offset by large earnings from the tourist industry and by remittances from Spaniards working abroad. The revenue from these two sources often allowed invisible receipts to exceed the trade deficit, the result being a surplus in the nation's current account balance. In 1983 Spain's current account balance registered a deficit of US$2.7 billion, but this was followed by surpluses during the next four years. In 1985 the surplus amounted to US$2.8 billion, and in 1986 it was US$4.2 billion. The surplus for 1987 was only US$184 million but, as capital goods made up much of that year's imports, economists were not alarmed.

Although famous for its production of citrus fruits, olives, and wine, about three-quarters of Spain's exports consisted of manufactured products in the mid-1980s. In 1986 and in 1987, manufactured goods made up 74.4 and 72.4 percent of the country's exports, respectively, while foodstuffs accounted for 16.1 and 17.6 percent, respectively. In these two years, raw materials made up about 4 percent of Spain's exports, and fuel products, about 6 percent. Merchandise imports generally exceeded merchandise exports by about one-third. In the 1980s, manufactured goods constituted about two-thirds of all imports, fuels as much as one-fifth, and other raw materials and foods about one-tenth each.

Trading Partners

Ever since steps were taken in the 1960s to liberalize Spain's economy, its trade with West European countries had steadily expanded. In 1973 EC countries accounted for 47.8 percent of Spain's exports, and they provided 37 percent of its imports. In the early 1980s, this ratio had not changed significantly; in 1982 the respective figures were 48.6 and 31.8 percent. After Spain's accession to the EC, however, the balance shifted radically; in 1987, some 63.8 percent of Spain's exports went to the EC, while the EC supplied Spain with 54.6 percent of its imports. In 1987 France was Spain's most important trading customer, taking 18.9 percent of its merchandise exports; West Germany was the largest source of imports, supplying 16.1 percent of the total. The United States, which was Spain's single most important trading partner in the 1970s, accounted for just over 8 percent of both imports and exports in 1987. Increased trade with the EC caused Spain's economic interaction with most of the rest of the world to decline on a relative basis. This decline was most marked with regard to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which supplied Spain with 26.8 percent of its imports and received 5.3 percent of its exports in 1982, compared with 9.5 and 6.5 percent in 1987.

Foreign Investment

Since the late 1950s, foreign investment has played an increasingly crucial role in Spain's economic modernization. One of the first and most significant steps included in the Stabilization Plan of 1959 was granting foreigners permission to buy Spanish securities. In 1963 this measure was supplemented by allowing foreigners the right to secure majority interest in Spanish companies, except those engaged in fields deemed to have strategic importance. As a result of these actions, there was a large influx of foreign capital into Spain.

Spain was attractive to foreign investors not merely because it offered opportunities for participating in a rapidly expanding domestic market, but also because it served as a base for further export and trade with EC countries. This was a leading factor in Ford Motor Company's 1974 decision to build an assembly plant near Valencia, and in General Motors' entry into the Spanish market. Japanese companies also intensified their investments and presence in Spain with similar goals in mind. Low-cost labor was another attraction for foreign investors, though not to the same extent as in the 1960s and the 1970s.

In compliance with the EC accession agreement, rules governing foreign investment in Spain were adapted to EC standards in 1986. The new measures streamlined administrative procedures and reduced the number of sectors in which foreign ownership was restricted. The requirement for prior authorization of investments was replaced by one calling merely for prior notification. Notification had to be given when the investment was for more than 50 percent of a Spanish enterprise, when it constituted a re-investment by foreigners, or when its goal was the establishment of branches of foreign companies on Spanish soil.

The influx of foreign investment was extremely large during the 1980s, almost tripling between 1982 and 1987. Some of it took the form of speculative investment, attracted by high Spanish interest rates. More than half of all new foreign investments in Spain represented an expansion of previously existing investments; nearly one-third were in the chemical industry and in the nonfuel mineral processing sector. EC countries became the most important source of investment. The United States, nonetheless, still accounted for about 20 percent of the cumulative foreign investment total. It was expected that, if negotiations being conducted in 1988 for a United States-Spain treaty to avoid double taxation were successful, United States investment might increase.

Spanish direct investment abroad, for which regulatory restrictions were liberalized in 1986, doubled to 101 billion pesetas in 1987. EC countries accounted for 64 percent of the total, with the Netherlands, West Germany, and Portugal being the largest recipients. Investments in the United States fell to 8 percent of the total. Spanish investments in Latin America, especially in Mexico and in Argentina, declined sharply because of heavy debt burdens in that region. By the late 1980s, analysts estimated that Latin America accounted for only 4 percent of Spain's foreign investments.

Spain and the European Community

The year 1992 promised to be one of the most momentous for Spain in the twentieth century. The Summer Games of the XXVth Olympiad were to be held in Barcelona; the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the New World was to be celebrated in Seville, with an ambitious international exposition known as Expo 92; and Madrid had been designated as Europe's cultural capital for that year. Moreover, 1992 would mark the culmination of a forced march to modernize the country's economic, social, and financial institutions, because Spain would be fully exposed to the bracing winds of unfettered economic competition from the members of the EC. By the end of 1992, the EC's plan to eliminate barriers to trade, employment, and the flow of capital across the twelve member states' borders was to take effect.

Spain's long adherence to protectionism had been a major factor in its technological and economic backwardness. The Socialist government's commitment to economic modernization and to Spain's integration into the European economic mainstream thus represented a historic landmark. The end of authoritarian rule in 1975 led Spain to embrace a system of political democracy, but changes in the economic sphere proved more difficult. In the 1980s, true economic modernization was only beginning, as the Gonzalez government cast Spain's national goals in terms of increasing its competitiveness, both within Europe and around the world.

The Spanish economy had long functioned on a two-tiered basis. One part--including most notably the automobile manufacturing and chemical industries--was technologically advanced. An even larger part was accustomed to operating inefficiently, protected from outside competition and highly fragmented into a host of small and medium-sized enterprises that accounted for as much as 90 percent of Spain's commerce and industry. It was in this second economic area that the brunt of accelerated change was being felt in the second half of the 1980s, as many small, inefficient concerns faced the effects of free market competition.

Spain had been trying to join, or to align itself with, the EC since 1962. The barriers to Spanish membership were primarily political, and they reflected varying degrees of European hostility to the Franco government rather than fear of economic competition. Among the members of the EC, only Italy and France, with similar agricultural export commodities, had substantial economic motives for opposing Spain's entry into the EC.

After long negotiations, which began in 1962, Spain and the EC signed a preferential trade agreement in June 1970. The agreement called for mutual tariff reductions, ranging from 25 to 60 percent, to be applied gradually over a six-year period. Quantitative restrictions for a number of items were eased under a special quota system.

At the end of the Franco era, little attention was given to Spain's urgent economic problems. Spaniards and their postFrancoist governments tended to regard membership in the EC as a symbolic political act that obtained recognition for Spain's return to democracy, rather than as a portentous economic policy decision irretrievably linking Spain's economic future with that of Europe. The result was that, although Spain had applied for membership nearly a quarter of a century earlier, little national debate took place prior to the signing of the 1985 accession agreement, which was concluded only after arduous negotiations.

The accession agreement called for gradual integration to be carried out over a seven-year period, beginning on January 1, 1986. This adjustment transition involved a number of significant features. Customs duties were to be phased out as of March 1, 1988, and industrial tariffs on EC goods were to be phased out on a reciprocal basis until January 1, 1993. Additional import levies, most notably Spain's tax rebate on exports, were to disappear upon its entry into the EC. With some exceptions, import quotas were to be removed immediately. Quotas on color television sets and tractors were to be eliminated by the end of 1988, and those for chemicals and textiles, by the close of 1989.

In principle, EC-based companies were free to invest in Spain. National assistance programs for industrial projects were subject to strict EC regulations, but special allowances were made for the steel industry, and Spain was allowed to keep its 60 percent local content rule for automobile manufacturing until the end of 1989. Spain became subject to EC antitrust rules immediately, however.

Spain was obliged to adhere to EC product and consumer protection standards at once. Like other EC members, Spain was required to levy a value-added tax (VAT), which was the EC's principal source of revenue. Spanish workers were to be able to circulate freely and seek employment in the EC by 1993.

Phased alignment with the EC's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was to be completed only in 1996. The Spanish widely regarded this as a discriminatory action taken by EC countries to prevent imports of Spanish tomatoes, olive oil, and wines until as late a date as possible. Spain's fishing industry, the largest in Western Europe, received the right to fish in most EC waters, but its catch was sharply restricted until 1995.

Despite a favorable attitude toward the establishment of an eventual EC-wide monetary union in the late 1980s, the government was reluctant to commit the peseta to stabilization within the European Monetary System (EMS) because of its over-valued exchange rate. In mid-1988 the Bank of Spain took what was regarded as a symbolic step toward full membership in the EMS by formally accepting the 1979 Basel agreement. By the terms of the agreement, EC central banks made 20 percent of their gold and foreign currency reserves available to the European Monetary Cooperation Fund, against the equivalent in European Currency Units (ECUs). The subject of the peseta's inclusion in the ECUs, in all likelihood a prerequisite of Spain's full participation in the EMS's exchange-rate system, was to be taken up in September 1989, when the composition of the next ECU would be determined.

The Spanish government sought special treatment for the peseta, the exchange rate of which was considered inflated. Such an arrangement would permit relatively wide margins of fluctuation similar to those enjoyed by the Italian lira. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged Spain's early membership in the EMS, and the pressure to reach a decision on this EMS question was bound to increase when Spain assumed the EC presidency during the first half of 1989.

In the late 1980s, some of the more painful aspects of Spain's integration into the EC were cushioned by the country's expansionary economic boom, the continuing fall in oil prices, a sharp reduction in the exchange value of the United States dollar, and the massive inflow of foreign investment, as numerous foreign multinational companies endeavored to participate in Spain's expanding consumer market. Observers expected that Spain's industrial enterprises, especially the more inefficient and backward ones, would be absorbed by more modern domestic and foreign entrepreneurs or would cease operations. Over the long term, however, the Spanish economy was expected to resemble that of its more advanced EC counterparts much more closely by the year 2000 than it had in the past.

Spain

Spain - Government

SPAIN'S TRANSFORMATION from a rigid, authoritarian, highly centralized regime into a pluralistic, liberal parliamentary democracy with considerable regional autonomy stands as one of the more remarkable political developments of the twentieth century. That this was accomplished without civil war or revolutionary upheaval and in the midst of unfavorable economic circumstances is all the more extraordinary. Despite decades of living under a repressive dictatorship, most Spanish citizens adapted readily to the new democratic system, and they turned out in large numbers for referenda and elections.

The institutions established under the new democratic regime were based on the principles of modernization and decentralization. The 1978 Constitution, which enjoyed massive popular support, established Spain as a democratic state ruled by law. Spain's form of government is that of a parliamentary monarchy, with political power centered in the bicameral Cortes (Spanish Parliament).

One of the most striking features of Spain's new governmental system is the devolution of power and responsibility to the regions. Regional differences had been the source of longstanding tensions between the center and the periphery in Spain. The 1978 Constitution addresses these conflicts by providing for an unprecedented degree of regional autonomy, although not all Spaniards have been satisfied with the pace of the devolution process. At the same time, the relationships between the more powerful autonomous regions and the central government remain complicated by the deliberately ambiguous terms of the Constitution.

The dismantling of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco y Bahamonde (dictator of Spain, 1939-75) and the establishment of democratic political institutions did not immediately permeate all levels of society. Reactionary elements within the army remained opposed to democracy, and rumors of coup plots were a persistent feature of the early years of democratic rule, although they subsequently subsided as the government stabilized. The civil service also resisted transformation, remaining almost as inefficient and cumbersome as it was under Franco.

Although Spanish citizens had minimal experience with political involvement prior to the advent of participatory democracy, they took to it enthusiastically, and, after a shaky beginning, a viable party system developed. The stability of this party system was evidenced by the declining support for extremist parties and by the peaceful transfer of power from a conservative coalition to the Socialist Workers' Party in the 1982 elections. In the late 1980s, the major challenge to the governing Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol-- PSOE) came from within its own ranks, as labor leaders complained that Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez Marquez had forsaken his socialist roots in favor of market-oriented policies.

Spain continued to seek an independent role in the international arena, while maintaining a European focus through membership in the European Community (EC) and, through association, on its own terms, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Other major foreign policy goals continued to be the re-establishment of Spanish sovereignty in Gibraltar, the retention of the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and an influential role for Spain in Latin America. In 1987 Spain expressed a latent anti-Americanism, prevalent in the country since the 1898 Spanish-American War, when the government delayed renewal of the long-standing agreement for United States use of military bases in Spain in exchange for military and economic assistance.

One difficult problem facing the government in the 1980s was the ongoing menace of Basque terrorism, as militant separatists continued to perpetrate assassinations and bombings in spite of vigorous antiterrorist measures. A more far-reaching challenge lay in the economic realm. Workers were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their diminished earnings and with the government's failure to deal with the unemployment problem.

The political changes since 1975 have been dramatic and profound. Spain has benefited from the shrewd leadership of its king and its prime ministers, who successfully presided over the transition to democracy and its consolidation. Nevertheless, Spanish leadership confronted the challenge of sustaining social stability in the face of economic and regional pressures.

<"72.htm">CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM
<"81.htm">POLITICS
<"86.htm">FOREIGN RELATIONS

Spain

Spain - CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM

The 1978 Constitution dismantled the political system of the Franco regime and established Spain as a democratic state ruled by law. The writing of the Constitution was a long and arduous task, involving extensive negotiations and compromise. Spain has a history of failed constitutions, and the framers of the 1978 Constitution endeavored to devise a document that would be acceptable to all the major political forces.

In July 1977, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs was formed, made up of thirty-six deputies from the newly elected Cortes. These deputies in turn appointed a seven-member subcommittee that included members of the major national parties and one representative, a Catalan, of the regional parties. This group was to produce a draft constitution, which it completed in December and presented to the full committee. Vigorous debate ensued, and by the time the draft was returned to the subcommittee for final revision in January 1978, individual Cortes deputies and party caucuses had proposed more than 1,000 amendments.

As the seven subcommittee members attempted to address the issues raised by these amendments, consensus began to break down over provisions concerning the Roman Catholic Church, education, labor lockouts, and the regional issue. The PSOE delegate withdrew from the subcommittee in protest on two occasions, and it required delicate diplomatic maneuvering on the part of Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez to surmount the stalemate in the constituent process. Compromise agreements were reached by the end of May, when the text went back to the full committee. By June 20, this committee had completed revisions of the draft document, which was presented for debate in the Congress of Deputies (lower chamber of the Cortes) in July, a year after the formation of the constitutional committee.

The text was passed with negligible opposition, although deputies of the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco--PNV) abstained because of what they termed the inadequate provisions for regional autonomy. The draft constitution then went to the Senate (upper chamber of the Cortes), where it again received more than 1,000 amendments and was revised by another constitutional committee. At the end of September, the full Senate discussed the text and approved it. Because there were differences between the version passed by the Senate and the one approved by the Congress of Deputies, another committee, including both senators and deputies, was required to resolve the discrepancies. This group also added the stipulation that the prime minister must either call for new elections or seek a vote of confidence within thirty days of the promulgation of the new constitution.

On October 31, 1978, both chambers overwhelmingly approved the text of the new Constitution, which was presented to the people in a referendum on December 6, 1978. Of the 67.7 percent of eligible voters who went to the polls, 87.8 percent accepted the new Constitution, which was signed by the king on December 27.

The Constitution that the Spaniards ratified in 1978 is long and complicated. In their efforts to avoid dogmatism and to gain widespread support, the framers had produced a document that was hailed as a triumph for consensus politics, but at the same time the new Constitution included ambiguous language and contradictory provisions, which gave rise to problems of interpretation in subsequent months and years.

<"73.htm">The 1978 Constitution
<"74.htm">Electoral System
<"75.htm">The Cortes
<"76.htm">King, Prime Minister, and Council of Ministers
<"77.htm">The Judiciary
<"78.htm">Regional Government
<"79.htm">Local Government
<"80.htm">Civil Service

Spain

Spain - The 1978 Constitution

The Constitution proclaims Spain to be a social and democratic state governed by law and declares liberty, justice, equality, and political pluralism to be the country's foremost values. National sovereignty resides in the people, from whom all powers of the state emanate. The new Constitution defines Spain as a parliamentary monarchy, with the king as head of state and symbol of its unity and permanence. It establishes a bicameral legislature, the Cortes, and an independent judicial system.

The Constitution delineates the role of political parties and requires that they adhere to democratic structures and procedures. It provides for universal suffrage at the age of eighteen and abolishes the death penalty, except under military law in time of war.

The longest section of the Constitution sets forth the basic civil, political, and socioeconomic rights of citizens, all of whom are equal before the law, regardless of birth, race, sex, or religion. They are protected against unlawful arrests, searches, seizures, and other invasions of privacy. If accused of a crime, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and they have the right to a legally appointed judge, a solicitor, and a public trial without delay. The Constitution guarantees the freedoms of religion, assembly, and association, and it stipulates that citizens may make individual or collective petitions in writing to the government.

Individual liberties are further strengthened by constitutional provisions recognizing the right to organize trade unions, to join them or to refrain from joining them, and to strike. The Constitution links the right to work with the duty to work, and it calls for sufficient remuneration to meet individual and family needs, without discrimination as to sex. It also guarantees adequate pensions for the elderly, protection of the handicapped, and decent housing, and it ascribes to the state a fundamental role with regard to the organization and protection of health care and welfare.

The Constitution declares that the rights and the liberties described therein are binding on all public authorities. A provision exists (Article 55) for the suspension of these rights and liberties, but this can be used only under strictly regulated circumstances.

The Constitution includes significant provisions pertaining to the armed forces and to the Roman Catholic Church, two institutions that have played dominant roles in Spain's political history. The framers of the new document sought to reduce the influence of these historically powerful institutions, and, at the same time, tried not to alienate them to the point that they might become sources of opposition. The role of each of these traditional institutions is clearly defined and is strictly limited in the new Constitution. While assigning to the army the role of safeguarding the sovereignty and independence of Spain and of defending its territorial integrity and constitutional order, the Constitution emphasizes that ultimate responsibility for Spain's defense rests with its popularly elected government, not with the armed forces.

The role of the Roman Catholic Church also is reduced in the 1978 Constitution, which denies Catholicism the status of state religion. The provisions of the new Constitution with regard to the church are, however, not as stridently secular as those of the 1931 constitution, which so antagonized the conservative elements of Spanish society. The 1978 document guarantees complete religious freedom and declares that there will be no state religion, but it also affirms that public authorities are to take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and that they are to maintain cooperative relations with the Roman Catholic Church and with other religions.

Religion was also a factor in the formulation of constitutional provisions concerning education. There was considerable controversy over the issue of providing private schools with public funds, because in Spain most private schools are run by the church or by the religious orders. The Constitution guarantees freedom of education and calls for the government to provide some financial assistance to private schools. It further stipulates that children in state schools may receive religious teaching, if their parents so desire. At the same time, the Constitution gives the government the authority to inspect and to license the schools, thus granting it some control over the institutions it subsidizes. Conflicts over this issue of state control led to the passage in 1984 of the Organic Law on the Right to Education (Ley Organica del Derecho a la Educacion-- LODE), which established three categories of schools and set forth conditions to be met by private institutions receiving financial aid from the government.

Along with constitutional provisions pertaining to education and to the church, those dealing with regional issues were sources of bitter controversy. Historical tensions between the center and the periphery in Spain made it difficult for the framers of the Constitution to reach agreement on matters of regional autonomy. The compromise that they eventually reached was unsatisfactory to extremist elements on both sides of the issue, and the terrorist movement that grew out of this controversy continues to be the major threat to Spain's stability.

The new Constitution seeks to recognize, and to respond to, deep-seated cultural differences among the existing nationalities by allowing for substantial regional autonomy, in contrast to the stifling centralism imposed by Franco. Although it affirms the indissoluble unity of the nation, it also grants a greater degree of autonomy to Spain's nationalities and regions, which are allowed to use their own languages and flags without interference.

Spain

Spain - Electoral System

The electoral system--with the exception of the Senate, which uses a majority system--is set forth in the electoral law of 1977, updated in 1985, which is based on the d'Hondt system of proportional representation. A party must obtain a minimum of 3 percent of the vote in order to qualify for parliamentary representation. Each province is to have a minimum of two seats in the Congress of Deputies, plus one additional seat for every 144,500 inhabitants or fraction over 70,000 inhabitants. Each province is allotted four seats in the Senate, regardless of population.

This system tends to overrepresent the more traditional, rural, and thinly populated parts of Spain and to favor the larger parties, which also benefit from the system of postelectoral subsidies. Under this arrangement, the state allocates funds to the party of each elected candidate. Parties are also given smaller sums for each vote received by their candidates, provided that at least one candidate is elected. One of the effects of this system is that parties able to demonstrate probable electoral success are able to obtain loans to finance their campaigns based on their expected subsidies.

The electoral law guarantees universal, free, and direct suffrage and stipulates that voting shall be by secret ballot. It permits postal balloting for those away from their areas of registration. Voting is done by party list. Only the names of an individual party and its leader appear on ballots, with the exception of those of the Senate, for which a multiparty list is used, and voters choose any three candidates. Elections are held every four years, although an early dissolution of the Cortes will mean early elections for this body. Elections in the autonomous communities--except those in the "historic regions" of Galicia, Catalonia (Spanish, Cataluna; Catalan, Catalunya), the Basque Country (Spanish, Pais Vasco; Basque, Euskadi), and Andalusia (Spanish, Andalucia), which received their autonomy earlier than the other thirteen communities--are held simultaneously.

Spain

Spain - The Cortes

The Cortes is the most powerful governmental institution of the state. It is made up of a lower house, the Congress of Deputies, and an upper chamber, the Senate. The Congress of Deputies, the stronger of the two bodies, may consist of between 300 and 400 members--although electoral laws have set the norm at 350 deputies--elected by proportional representation every four years, unless parliament is dissolved earlier by the head of state. The Senate is composed of 208 directly elected members and 49 regional representatives, also chosen every four years.

The preponderance of legislative authority lies with the Congress of Deputies. Either house may initiate legislation, but the lower house can override a Senate veto by a vote of a simple majority of its members. Thus, if a political party has a solid majority in the Congress of Deputies, a Senate veto has little effect. The predominance of the lower house is also evidenced by the fact that the president of the Congress presides when the two chambers are meeting jointly.

The Congress of Deputies also has the power to ratify or to reject decree laws adopted by the government, and its authorization is required for a declaration of a state of exception and for the extension of a state of alarm. It is also the body that is responsible, if necessary, for accusing the prime minister or his ministers of treason or of crimes against the state. The prime minister must receive a vote of investiture from the Congress of Deputies before being formally sworn into office by the king. A prime minister may request a vote of confidence from the Congress of Deputies at any time. If he fails to achieve this, both houses of parliament are dissolved, and new elections are called. Furthermore, the Congress of Deputies has potentially significant power over the executive because it may vote the prime minister out of office by adopting a motion of censure by absolute majority.

The primary function of the Senate is territorial representation. Its only exclusive power concerns the autonomous communities. If a community fails to fulfill its legal and its constitutional obligations, or acts contrary to the general interests of Spain, the government, with the approval of an overall majority of the Senate, may adopt measures to enforce the community's compliance with its obligations.

Although each chamber of the Cortes carries out certain duties separately, many important functions are exercised by both houses, in which case they meet as the General Cortes (Cortes Generales). In this capacity, they elaborate laws proposed by the government, by the Congress of Deputies, by the Senate, by any autonomous community, or through popular initiative. They also approve, and they may amend, state budgets proposed by the executive. They furthermore may direct interpellations and questions to the government and to individual ministers.

Each chamber of the Cortes meets in separate premises in Madrid, and each holds two regular annual sessions--from September to December and from February to June. They may meet in extraordinary session to attend to a specific matter at the request of the government, or at the request of the absolute majority of the members of either chamber.

All Spaniards "having full use of their political rights" may be candidates for election to the Cortes, except for the following: members of the Constitutional Court, high-ranking civil servants, practicing judges and public prosecutors, the ombudsman, professional military personnel, members of the police and security forces who are in active service, and members of electoral commissions. Members of the Cortes may not be members of both chambers at the same time, nor may members of the Congress of Deputies have a seat in both the Congress and a regional assembly. Senators are not barred from occupying a seat in a regional assembly. Members of the Cortes are required to disclose their income and their assets following election. They are expected to attend plenary sessions of the chamber and of the committees on which they serve. Senators who consistently fail to attend such meetings are liable to incur a financial penalty.

Along with these obligations, parliamentarians enjoy certain rights and privileges. They may not be prosecuted for verbal opinions expressed in the exercise of their duties. While in office, they may be arrested only if caught in the actual act of committing a crime. Even in this case, they cannot be charged or prosecuted without prior consent of the Cortes. They are guaranteed a fixed salary and social security payments, along with allowances for extra expenses incurred in the line of duty. Members of the Cortes exercise their functions independently, and they are not obliged to follow the dictates of their parties' leaderships in casting their votes.

Spain

Spain - King, Prime Minister, and Council of Ministers

By defining the state as a parliamentary monarchy, the Constitution makes it clear that the king is not sovereign and that sovereignty resides with the people as expressed in their democratically elected parliament. The king is a hereditary and constitutional monarch, who serves as head of state.

The decision to retain the monarchy, which had been restored under the Franco regime, represents a historically significant compromise. As the Constitution was being formulated, parties of the left were strongly opposed to a monarchy, which they saw as a Francoist legacy; they favored establishing a republican form of government. At the same time, reactionary elements wanted to preserve the monarchy in order to use it as a means to perpetuate Francoism. In between these two extremes were the reformers, who thought that the monarchy could serve as an element of stabilization during the transition to democracy.

A compromise eventually was reached whereby the left-wing parties accepted the institution of a parliamentary monarchy as reflecting the will of the majority. Constitutional provisions dealing with the king's role were worded in such a way as to make clear the neutral and apolitical nature of his duties. The success of this arrangement has been largely attributable to King Juan Carlos de Borbon's willingness to relinquish the powers that Franco had conferred upon him and to rule as a constitutional monarch within a democratic system of government.

The crown is hereditary, and the king's eldest son is first in the line of succession. (In the case of Juan Carlos, there is only one son, Prince Felipe, and there are two daughters.) Whereas Franco's fundamental laws forbade a female monarch, the 1978 Constitution allows a female to inherit the throne, but only if there are no males of the same generation. If all hereditary lines entitled to the crown by law become extinct, the succession to the throne is to be determined by the General Cortes.

The king sanctions and promulgates laws that have been worked out by the other branches of government. He formally convenes and dissolves the Cortes and calls for elections and for referenda. He appoints the prime minister after consultation with the Cortes and names the other ministers, upon the recommendation of the prime minister. He also signs decrees made in the Council of Ministers and ratifies civil and military appointments.

Although the king does not have the power to direct foreign affairs, he has a vital role as the chief representative of Spain in international relations. The potential significance of this role has been demonstrated during the reign of Juan Carlos, whose many trips abroad and contacts with foreign leaders have enabled the Spanish government to establish important political and commercial ties with other nations. The king also has the duty to indicate the state's consent to international treaties and, with the prior authorization of the Cortes, to declare war and peace.

The Constitution confers upon the king the title of supreme commander of the armed forces, although he has no actual authority over them. Nevertheless, Juan Carlos has maintained close relations with the military, and he has used his considerable influence with them to counteract potential threats to the stability of the democratic regime.

The influence of the king depends largely upon the individual who holds the title, because he is granted no independent executive powers by the Constitution. Every one of his acts must be countersigned by the prime minister or by one of his ministers. In spite of these restrictions, the monarchy under Juan Carlos has achieved a significant degree of moral authority, largely because of his courageous and steadfast adherence to democratic procedures.

If the king has the symbolic role of representing the state, the prime minister has the more powerful role of chief of government. As the leader of the dominant political party in the Cortes, he bears the responsibility and the accountability for his own actions and for those of the government. He directs the preparation, promotion, and execution of the government's program and coordinates the functions of the various ministries. The prime minister nominates candidates for the king to appoint as his ministers. He also has the right to name candidates for civil service positions and to select the civil governors in each province as well as the government delegates to the autonomous communities. A reform law approved late in 1983 placed the armed forces under the control of the prime minister, although the king remained supreme commander.

The prime minister may ask for a vote of confidence from the Congress of Deputies with regard to his program or policies. He may propose the dissolution of the Congress of Deputies, the Senate, or the Cortes, unless a motion of censure is under consideration. The position of his government in the event of such a motion of censure is strengthened significantly by the requirement that such a motion must contain the name of a candidate to succeed the prime minister if the motion is approved. This provision makes it more difficult to overthrow the government, because minority parties may find it more difficult to agree upon a candidate than to concur in their opposition to the incumbent.

When the prime minister is appointed following elections, he must present his program to the Congress of Deputies and receive a vote of investiture by absolute majority before he can be sworn in by the king. If he cannot obtain a vote of confidence for investiture, a new vote is taken forty-eight hours later, requiring only a simple majority. If this procedure fails, the king is to propose other candidates until one gains a vote of confidence. Should no candidate succeed within two months of the first vote, the king dissolves the Cortes and calls for new elections.

The prime minister remains in office until such time as he and his government lose the support of the Congress of Deputies in a vote of confidence, or the Congress of Deputies approves a motion of censure. A prime minister also must resign if he and his party are defeated in the general elections, in which case he remains in office until the new prime minister has been sworn in. When a prime minister leaves office for whatever reason, even if it is his own choice, his cabinet must resign with him. They nonetheless retain their functions in a caretaker capacity until a new government has been installed.

A deputy prime minister assumes the functions of the head of government if the prime minister dies, or if he is ill or out of the country. The deputy also plays a coordinating role, working closely with the prime minister, senior ministers, and high- ranking party members. The deputy prime minister may assume other functions, at the discretion of the prime minister.

The prime minister, the deputy prime minister, and the other ministers together comprise the Council of Ministers, which functions as a cabinet, and which is the highest executive institution of the state. The Council of Ministers has both policy-making and administrative functions, and it is responsible for the implementation of government policy. In addition to overseeing the administration of the various ministries, it controls military affairs and is responsible for national security and defense. In the exercise of all of its functions, it is ultimately accountable to the Cortes.

Cabinet ministers are each charged with the responsibility of administering their individual departments. Although they may exercise a great deal of discretion and autonomy within their ministries, they are ultimately responsible to the prime minister. They present to the Council of Ministers draft laws that have been prepared within their departments, and they establish rules to implement government policy. They have the power to issue ministerial orders without the approval of the Council of Ministers and to sign state contracts in matters concerning their ministries. They also may resolve administrative conflicts within their departments. Ministers are responsible to the Council of Ministers as well as to the prime minister for their actions, and they can be called to explain their policies before one or both houses of the Cortes, or before one of the parliamentary committees.

The Constitution declares that government ministers may not hold any additional public posts not related to their governmental office, and it also prohibits them from engaging in professional or commercial activity. This provision is aimed at avoiding the corruption that prevailed in the Franco era, when senior government ministers frequently occupied important positions in the business community and sometimes held more than one post within the public administration.

Various advisory bodies serve the administration. The most important of these is the Council of State, which the Constitution refers to as the highest consultative organ of the government. It has no executive functions or powers and performs in a purely advisory capacity. The Council of Ministers appoints its president, who is usually an experienced jurist. The other members--approximately twenty-three in number--are eminent representatives of the autonomous regions, the armed forces, civil service, and the legal and academic communities. Permanent members are appointed by government decree for an indefinite period, whereas members termed elected are those who are also appointed by decree but who are chosen from among citizens who have held various specific jobs; the elected members serve on the council for a period of four years.

Spain

Spain - The Judiciary

The Constitution declares that justice emanates from the people and that it is administered in the name of the king by independent judges and magistrates, who are irremovable and who are responsible and subject only to the rule of law. The judicial system is headed by the Supreme Court, which is the country's highest tribunal except for constitutional questions. The supreme governing and administrative body is the General Council of the Judiciary. Its primary functions are to appoint judges and to maintain ethical standards within the legal profession. The 1978 Constitution provides that twelve of this council's twenty members are to be selected for five-year terms by judges, lawyers, and magistrates, with the remaining eight to be chosen by the Cortes. A judicial reform law that entered into force in July 1985 called for all twenty members to be chosen by the Cortes; ten by the Congress of Deputies and ten by the Senate. The General Council of the Judiciary elects the president of the Supreme Court, who also serves on this council. In addition, there are territorial courts, regional courts, provincial courts, courts of the first instance, and municipal courts.

Constitutional questions are to be resolved by a special Constitutional Court, outlined in the 1978 Constitution and in the Organic Law on the Constitutional Court that was signed into law in October 1979. This court consists of twelve judges who serve for nine-year terms. Four of these are nominated by the Congress of Deputies, four by the Senate, two by the executive branch of the government, and two by the General Council of the Judiciary. They are chosen from among jurists of recognized standing with at least fifteen years' experience. Once appointed, they are prohibited by the Constitution from engaging in other forms of political, administrative, professional, or commercial activity. The Organic Law on the Constitutional Court contains provisions whereby the court can expel its own members, a circumstance which appears to contradict the constitutional declaration that magistrates are irremovable.

The Constitutional Court is authorized to rule on the constitutionality of laws, acts, or regulations set forth by the national or the regional parliaments. It also may rule on the constitutionality of international treaties before they are ratified, if requested to do so by the government, the Congress of Deputies, or the Senate. The Constitution further declares that individual citizens may appeal to the Constitutional Court for protection against governmental acts that violate their civil rights. Only individuals directly affected can make this appeal, called an amparo, and they can do this only after exhausting other judicial appeals.

In addition, this court has the power to preview the constitutionality of texts delineating statutes of autonomy and to settle conflicts of jurisdiction between the central and the autonomous community governments, or between the governments of two or more autonomous communities. Because many of the constitutional provisions pertaining to autonomy questions are ambiguous and sometimes contradictory, this court could play a critical role in Spain's political and social development.

The Constitution prohibits special courts and limits the jurisdiction of military courts to members of the armed services, except during a state of siege. It provides for a public prosecutor as well as for a public defender, to protect both the rule of law and the rights of citizens. A significant innovation is the provision allowing for trial by jury in criminal cases.

A major problem that continued to plague the legal system in the 1980s was a severe shortage of funds, which made it impossible to keep up with an increasingly heavy case load. This resulted in inordinate delays, which led to corrupt practices such as the bribing of court administrators by lawyers attempting to expedite their clients' cases.

Spain

Spain - Regional Government

The framers of the 1978 Constitution had to deal with many controversial issues arising from the advent of democracy to a nation that had been under dictatorial control for decades. Among these, the most divisive was the historically sensitive question of regional autonomy. The Spanish state is unusual in the extent and the depth of its regional differences, and the society includes ethnic groups--notably the Basques, Catalans, and Galicians--that are each culturally and linguistically distinct from the rest of the country. The strength of regional feeling is such that, in many areas, Spaniards identify more closely with their region than they do with the nation.

Long-standing tensions between the center and the periphery were repressed, but not extinguished, by Franco's rigid centralism. After his death, there was considerable popular and official support for some degree of decentralization; a key feature of the democratic reforms was the devolution of increased power and responsibility to the regions. This applied not only to those regions that historically had enjoyed a degree of autonomy- -Galicia, the Basque region, and Catalonia--but to the rest of Spain as well.

This transformation from a unitary state into a more decentralized structure was not accomplished without bitter conflict. Reactionary elements objected to any reference to regional autonomy in the Constitution as a threat to national unity, while, at the other extreme, militant Basques demanded the right of self-determination for the regions. After prolonged and acrimonious debate, a compromise was agreed upon by all the major parties except the Basque nationalists. Discontent in this region has been a major disruptive element in the post-Franco years.

The Constitution proclaims the indissoluble unity of the nation, but it recognizes and guarantees the right to autonomy of the nationalities and the regions of which the state is composed. Adjoining provinces with common historical, cultural, and economic characteristics, as well as the Balearic Islands (Spanish, Islas Baleares) and the Canary Islands (Spanish, Canarias), are granted the right to form autonomous communities. These communities are, however, expressly prohibited from forming federations. Castilian Spanish is declared to be the official language of Spain, but other languages are recognized as co- official in their respective autonomous communities. In addition, flags and emblems of these communities may be displayed alongside the Spanish flag on their public buildings and on public occasions.

The Constitution provides two procedures for achieving regional autonomy. The rapid procedure was for those regions that had sought autonomy in the 1930s. After approval by the Constitutional Committee of the Congress of Deputies, the proposal for autonomy was voted on in a regional referendum. The "historic nationalities" of Galicia, the Basque Country, and Catalonia acquired regional autonomy in this way. The slow procedure required initiative on the part of municipal and provincial governments as well as final approval by the Cortes, for a degree of regional autonomy less than that enjoyed by the "historic nationalities." A compromise procedure was devised for Andalusia because, although it had not sought regional autonomy earlier, there was widespread support for such autonomy among its inhabitants. Although the communities employing the rapid procedure gained a greater degree of autonomy than the other communities for the time being, ultimately--although probably not until sometimes in the 1990s--all were to have an equal degree of autonomy.

Following the attempted coup of February 1981, those who had urged a more cautious approach to regional autonomy prevailed, and the process was brought under stricter control by the controversial Organic Law on the Harmonization of the Autonomy Process (Ley Organica de Armonizacion del Proceso Autonomico-- LOAPA), approved in July 1981. Among the law's stipulations was that--with the exception of Andalusia, which was already nearing autonomous status--the remaining regions would have to proceed according to the more protracted and complicated method.

The regional reorganization of Spain into autonomous communities was completed in May 1983, when elections were held in the thirteen new autonomous communities, although the actual process of transferring powers was far from complete. The state consists of seventeen autonomous communities, each of which includes one or more previously existing provinces. These communities vary widely in size, in population, and in economic development; moreover, the political weight of an autonomous community is not necessarily related to its land area or population.

Each regional entity is governed by its own statute of autonomy. It has its own capital and a political structure based on a unicameral Legislative Assembly, elected by universal suffrage. This assembly chooses from among its members a president who is the highest representative of the community. Executive and administrative powers are exercised by the Council of Government, headed by the president and responsible to the assembly. There are also regional supreme courts, which are somewhat less autonomous than the legislative and the executive organs because they are subject to the ultimate authority of the Supreme Court in Madrid.

The division of powers between the autonomous regions and the central government is outlined in Article 148 and Article 149 of the Constitution. The language used to differentiate between the authority of the central government and that of the regions is, however, imprecise and ambiguous, resulting in varying, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations. Further confusion arises from the constitutional provision enabling the autonomous communities to extend their powers gradually, although it does not indicate specifically what these new powers are to be.

The areas enumerated as belonging under the exclusive jurisdiction of the national government include international affairs; defense; justice; criminal, commercial, and labor legislation; merchant shipping; civil aviation; foreign trade and tariffs; economic planning; finances; and public safety. Whereas the central government clearly is granted exclusive jurisdiction in these and in other matters, the provision that sets forth the rights of the autonomous communities is stated in less precise language. It declares that these communities may assume authority--a more equivocal mandate--over certain areas. These include the organization of their own institutions of self- government, municipal boundaries, town planning, housing, public works, forestry, environmental protection, cultural affairs and organizations, <"69.htm">tourism, sports and leisure events, social welfare, health and hygiene, and noncommercial ports and airports. In addition, the state may delegate to the communities part of its authority in areas reserved to its jurisdiction. Therefore, although the regions have very limited primary authority, the Constitution permits the extension of this authority by subsequent delegation.

The Constitution recognizes the right of the autonomous communities to have financial autonomy "for the development and enforcement of their authority." These communities receive revenue directly and indirectly from central government sources as well as from their own local taxes and special levies. They also may borrow money. The Constitution declares that the financial autonomy of the communities must be exercised in coordination with the policies of the central government, which is ultimately responsible for taxation and for guaranteeing equal opportunities for all citizens.

The mechanism for this arrangement was established by the 1980 Organic Law on the Financing of the Autonomous Communities, which provides for a Council for Fiscal and Financial Policy, to be composed of the finance ministers from the autonomous communities, the state finance minister, and the minister for public administration. This council is to function in a consultative capacity in order to coordinate policies concerning public investment and debt, cost of services, and the distribution of resources to the regions.

The state's ultimate responsibility for financial matters enables it to exercise a significant degree of control over the activities of the autonomous communities. A further element of control is the presence in each region of a central government delegate, appointed by the Council of Ministers at the recommendation of the prime minister, who monitors the activities of the regional government. Moreover, the state may challenge any measures adopted by the autonomous communities.

The Constitutional Court makes the final decision in any question pertaining to the constitutionality of regional legislation. In 1983 this court made a ruling that had the effect of increasing the powers of the autonomous communities. It invalidated portions of the controversial LOAPA and declared that this law did not harmonize the autonomy process. Significant provisions that were struck down included those stipulating that the state's legal norms should have automatic precedence over those of the autonomous regions and that regional civil servants should be seconded from Madrid rather than recruited locally.

The Constitution permits the government to intervene if an autonomous community fails to carry out its constitutional obligations or acts against the general interests of the nation. In such a case, the state is to ask the president of the autonomous community to correct the matter; if he or she fails to do so, the government, with majority approval from the Senate, may adopt measures necessary to enforce the community's compliance. As of mid-1988, this provision had never been invoked, and it remained unclear what such measures might entail.

In spite of these limitations on the jurisdiction of the communities, regions have enjoyed an unprecedented degree of autonomy since the death of Franco. Because rigid centralism was so closely identified with Francoism, Spaniards have come to associate democracy with greater regional independence. Although difficulties in the devolution process remain to be resolved, the development of such an extensive system of regional autonomy, by what had been one of the world's most centralized nations, is an indication of its peoples' commitment to democracy.

Spain

Spain - Local Government

Institutions of local government have undergone marked transformations since the Franco era, when they functioned primarily as instruments of the central government. The overhauling of administration at the local level had to wait, however, until a degree of political reform had been achieved at the national level. The first fully democratic local elections following Franco's demise were held in 1979, and limited reforms were introduced at the local level in 1981, but it was not until 1985 that the fundamental reorganization and democratization of local administration was completed with the passage of the Basic Law on Local Government (Ley Reguladora de las Bases de Regimen Local--LRBRL).

This law outlines the basic institutions at the municipal and the provincial levels, establishes guidelines for the sharing of responsibilities among the different tiers of administration, and lists the services that local authorities are to provide. The responsibilities of municipalities vary in proportion to the size of their populations. Municipal governments share responsibility with the regional government in matters of health and education. Both the central and the regional governments may delegate additional powers to municipalities. Because of the degree of authority that has been devolved to the autonomous communities from the central government, local institutions are politically dependent on these communities; however, they remain to a large extent financially dependent on Madrid.

Government at the municipal level is administered by a Municipal Council, the members of which are directly elected by universal suffrage and according to proportional representation. The number of council members is determined by the population of the municipality; a minimum of five is required by law. There is no limit to the number of times councillors may be re-elected. If they die, resign, or are dismissed, they are replaced by the next person on the electoral list of their political party; therefore, there are no by-elections.

The council is elected every four years, and it cannot be dissolved. The law requires it to meet in full session at least every three months; extraordinary sessions can be called by either the mayor or one-fourth of the council membership. The council does not formulate major laws, but drafts regulations related to legislation from the Cortes or the regional parliament. It oversees the budget, and it may raise taxes to supplement grants from the central and the regional governments.

Each Municipal Council is headed by a mayor, who is elected following local elections, from among the council members, and who, in most instances, serves as the leader of the majority party in the council. In addition to being chairman of the council, directing municipal administration, heading the municipal police force, and exercising extensive powers of appointment, the mayor plays a major public relations role and enjoys a great deal of prestige.

Municipalities of more than 5,000 inhabitants have a Municipal Commission to assist the mayor in the exercise of his duties. Municipal administration in such towns is divided into departments and districts, the leaders of which are ultimately responsible to the mayor.

Government at the provincial level has retained an element of its Francoist function as an outpost of the state. The Constitution defines the provinces as territorial divisions "designed to carry out the activities of the central government." The civil governor, who is the highest executive of the state administration at the provincial level, is appointed by the prime minister on the recommendation of the minister of interior. Thus, the governors are usually political appointees, as was the case during the Franco regime, although they have less power than they did formerly. They continue to be responsible for the state police and the security forces that operate at the provincial level. In addition to ensuring the implementation of state policies in the provinces, they function as a liaison between local authorities and the central government.

Provincial government is administered by a Provincial Council, which consists of deputies elected by the municipal councillors from among themselves. They remain on the Provincial Council for four years and may be re-elected for as many terms as they remain municipal councillors. As is the case with the municipal councils, the Provincial Council does not have the power to draft major laws, but it may establish regulations based on legislation from the Cortes or the regional parliament.

Each Provincial Council is headed by a president, who is elected by all the members of the full council. Although the civil governor is the highest representative of the central government in the province, the president of the Provincial Council has the responsibility for the government and administration of the province. The office of president of the Provincial Council was established during the Franco years, but it was largely overshadowed by that of the civil governor. Since the advent of democracy to Spain, the council president has acquired more prestige, and the role of the governor has been reduced.

Provincial government is administered differently in the Basque provinces, the single-province autonomous communities, the Balearic Islands, and the Canary Islands. The Basque provinces have more extensive privileges because of their status as "historic territories," which makes their provincial councils more powerful than those of other provinces. The autonomous communities that are made up of a single province assume all provincial powers and responsibilities, thereby obviating the need for provincial institutions. Because of the geographical separation that exists within the island chains, government and administration have been entrusted to island councils, which enjoy greater powers than their provincial counterparts. The small North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla have a special status: they are organized as municipalities of the provinces of Cadiz and Malaga, respectively. In both towns, civil authority is vested in an official, called the delegado del gobierno, who is directly responsible to the Ministry of Interior in Madrid. In 1986 the enclaves received municipal autonomy under the provisions of Spain's devolution of authority to regions, but, unlike Spain's other regional assemblies, they were not granted legislative powers. In March 1986, a large crowd of demonstrators in Ceuta protested this denial of full autonomy.

Spain

Spain - Civil Service

Part of the Francoist legacy to Spain was a highly inefficient and cumbersome civil service apparatus. Attempts to reform and to streamline the system of public administration have been hampered by the bureaucracy's traditional resistance to change.

Under Franco, the civil service system was dominated by cuerpos, professional associations of engineers, lawyers, economists, etc., within the civil service, which also performed functions similar to those of trade unions and fraternal organizations. Admission to a cuerpo was on the basis of a competitive examination that was judged by the current members. The cuerpo served as a channel for civil servants to make their demands to the appropriate minister. In addition, the cuerpos were able to exercise considerable influence over hiring and firing of persons for key administrative positions, thereby enabling them to protect their own economic interests. Loyalty to the cuerpo came to take precedence over administrative interests, and rivalry among these bodies added to the inefficiency of the system by hampering coordination among departments.

This bloated bureaucracy extended to the provincial level, where it became increasingly difficult to control. As civil servants increased in number, administrative efficiency declined and corruption flourished. Because of the low salaries traditionally paid to civil servants, the practice of holding more than one job was common. This in turn resulted in fewer hours devoted to administrative functions and a further reduction in efficiency.

In spite of intermittent efforts to reorganize this unwieldy structure, the civil service did not undergo significant change in the immediate post-Franco years. The cuerpos retained their influence, and the bureaucracy proliferated. In 1981 the number of civil servants had reached 1.2 million. Moreover, multiple job-holding had not been eliminated, despite constitutional restrictions against this practice.

When the PSOE came to power in 1982, its leaders took steps to reduce the number of civil servants and to require that they put in a full workday. The government introduced more stringent legislation against multiple job-holding, and it also endeavored to reduce ministerial rivalry. A departmental reorganization was carried out in July 1986, at which time the coordination and the overall control of the civil service became the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Administration.

Nevertheless, the bureaucratic behemoth had not suffered a mortal blow, and most of the abuses were not effectively eliminated. An indication of the resistance to change that prevailed in the civil service was the continued existence of very slow service and therefore of gestorias administrativas, i.e., private firms, the employees of which filled out forms and stood in line for customers, who considered the time saved well worth the price charged. Meaningful reform of the civil service remained on the government's wish list in the late 1980s.

Spain

Spain - POLITICS

The politicians who had played key roles in Spain's transition to democracy found that consolidating and administering this democracy was more difficult and less exhilarating than bringing it into being. Suarez, who had been pivotal in the reform process, found his leadership undermined by internal factionalism within his party coalition, the Union of the Democratic Center (Union de Centro Democratico--UCD), as well as by his ineffectiveness in dealing with the country's growing economic difficulties and regional tensions.

The Socialists had not been part of the government during the transition process, although they participated through pacts and agreements, and thus they did not share responsibility for the inevitable mistakes made in the early period. When they came to power in 1982, however, they too were faced with the age-old problem of center-periphery tension. In dealing with the regional issue as well as with the economic crisis, the Socialists found it necessary to moderate their ideological principles. Although compromise was essential, it resulted in the contradiction of earlier pronouncements and in the alienation of some elements of the political elites. Nevertheless, such pragmatism and moderation remained crucial to consolidating the rule of democracy in Spain.

<"82.htm">Political Developments, 1982-88
<"83.htm">Political Parties
<"84.htm">Political Interest Groups

Spain

Spain - Political Developments, 1982-88

Following its triumph at the polls in October 1982, the PSOE, under the leadership of Felipe Gonzalez, formed the first majority one-party government since the Civil War. The increase in voter participation, which rose from less than 68 percent in 1979 to 80 percent in 1982, seemed a significant indication of citizen affirmation of the democratic process. Municipal and regional elections, held in May 1983, confirmed the popularity of the Socialist government, which obtained 43 percent of the vote.

A significant factor in the Socialist victory in 1982 was the popular perception that profound economic and social reforms were long overdue. Previous governments had not been able to deal effectively with these issues, in part because of the need to focus on political and constitutional questions. Whereas most Spaniards had been willing to defer their hopes for economic improvement and for liberalized social policies in the interest of stabilizing the fledgling democracy, they became increasingly impatient for the reform process to reach their daily lives.

The economic reform policies implemented under the government of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE) government were pragmatic rather than ideological. Although stressing the need for reform, the government did not call for traditional socialist measures, such as the nationalization of industry, a significant redistribution of income, or massive state intervention in the economy. Instead, it pursued a program of economic austerity in order to lower inflation and raise productivity.

As part of an attempt to achieve greater efficiency in the industrial sector as well as in the civil service, the government eliminated many jobs. This had the short-term effect of adding to the nation's unemployment problem, and it met with strong opposition from the trade unions, although it gained support for the PSOE from the commercial and the financial sectors. The government's economic policies resulted in a moderate reduction in inflation and an increase in the rate of economic growth, but unemployment worsened, and strike activity increased 30 percent in 1984. In June 1985, there were massive protests against the proposed reforms in the social security system and the reductions in pension benefits. Nevertheless, the idea of streamlining the economy was viewed by most Spaniards as a positive step toward economic recovery, in spite of the fact that its costs were borne largely by the working class.

Although the Socialists' moderate approach to economic issues entailed a relatively slow rate of change, significant progress was achieved in other important areas, most notably that of military reorganization. In October 1983, Minister of Defense Narcis Serra i Serra announced plans for large-scale reductions in the size of the military, which was to be reoriented, toward national defense rather than internal security. Legislation passed in early 1984 placed the armed forces under the direct control of the prime minister and the civilian minister of defense. Increased subordination of the military to the civilian government was made more palatable to the military hierarchy by a major increase in military spending to modernize the army's equipment and weaponry.

The Socialist government also brought about significant reforms in the educational system. Education and Science Minister Jose Maria Maravall Herrero introduced legislation, passed in the spring of 1984, providing for increased state control over private schools that received government subsidies. The law also gave parents a greater role in the appointment of teachers and in establishing the curricula at these schools. This had a major impact on society, because in the late 1980s approximately one-third of students attended such schools, which usually had a religious affiliation. The Roman Catholic Church joined forces with the right-wing Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular--AP) to mobilize a large antigovernment rally, protesting the new educational policies, in November 1984.

A difficult problem facing the Socialist government was the continuing menace of Basque terrorism. Although democratization had brought an unprecedented degree of autonomy to the country's communities, there was increasing frustration in the Basque and the Catalan regions with the protracted process of transferring powers to the regional governments. The PSOE's concurrence with the implementation of the controversial LOAPA, passed by the UCD government in 1981, led the Basques and the Catalans to consider the Socialists as proponents of centralization. Terrorist activity by the militant Basque Fatherland and Freedom (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna--ETA), the Basque separatist organization founded in 1959 by a splinter group of the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco--PNV), continued unabated in Spain in the year following the election that brought the PSOE to power. This increased violence, in itself a destabilizing factor, also threatened Spain's hold on democracy by tempting right-wing forces to contemplate a coup in order to restore order.

In an effort to control terrorist activity and to calm the military, the Socialist government introduced strong antiterrorist legislation, which received widespread popular support. Nevertheless, the violence continued. Moreover, the central government received a setback in its antiterrorist campaign in 1984, when the Supreme Court overruled a decision by the Ministry of Interior to ban the political party Popular Unity (Herri Batasuna--HB), with which the ETA Military Front (ETA Militar--ETA-M) was associated, from representation in either the regional or the national parliament.

Prospects for a lessening of tension between the Basque Country and the Socialist government appeared to brighten when a legislative pact was signed in January 1985 between the president of the Basque Country and the Basque affiliate of the PSOE. This agreement included provisions to expedite the transfer of powers to the autonomous institutions and called for a joint offensive against terrorism. In spite of vigorous antiterrorist measures taken by the central government, however, bombings and assassinations continued.

While dealing with such demanding domestic concerns as terrorism and the need for economic and social reform, the Socialist government was also taking steps to develop a more active international role for Spain. The country had experienced ostracism under Franco because of the highly undemocratic nature of his regime. After taking office in 1982, the Socialists made vigorous efforts to gain entry into the European Community (EC). The government hoped that membership in the EC would bring not only economic advantages but also international recognition of the country's successful transition to democracy.

The question of Spain's entry into the EC met with repeated delays in 1983 and in 1984, largely because of the opposition of France. After protracted negotiations, a Treaty of Accession was signed in the summer of 1985, and Spain formally joined the EC on January 1, 1986.

Although the PSOE government had pursued the goal of EC membership with single-minded zeal, it was ambivalent with regard to participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Socialists had long advocated neutralism as part of their ideology; moreover, latent anti-Americanism was widespread in the population.

The Socialists had opposed Spain's decision to join NATO in May 1982, and part of their election platform in October of that year was the promise of a referendum on the question of remaining in the alliance. After coming to power, they soon changed their minds and concluded that some form of membership in NATO was in Spain's interest. This left Gonzalez with the ticklish task of campaigning for a favorable vote on an issue he had previously attacked.

In order to gain approval for his new pro-NATO position, Gonzalez attached conditions to membership. Spain would be part of NATO in a political sense but without military integration; furthermore, nuclear weapons were to be banned in Spain. In an effort to appease the left wing of his party, the prime minister promised that the number of United States troops in Spain, whose presence reminded many Spaniards of previous United States ties with the Franco regime, would be reduced. The promised referendum was held on March 12, 1986, and in spite of public opinion polls indicating strong anti-NATO sentiment, the people voted to continue membership in the alliance.

Gonzalez moved to consolidate the gains his government had made through EC membership and the successful NATO referendum by calling for national parliamentary elections in June 1986, four months ahead of schedule. The PSOE benefited from the fragmentation of both its right-wing opposition and the communists, and it retained an absolute majority in the general elections, winning 184 of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies--18 fewer than it had obtained in the 1982 elections, but still enough to retain control.

The official opposition was embodied in the conservative Popular Coalition (Coalicion Popular--CP), which included Manuel Fraga Iribarne's AP, the Popular Democratic Party (Partido Democrata Popular--PDP), and the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal-- PL). The CP failed in its attempt to attract the moderate vote by moving to the center. Fraga's abrasive personality and Francoist past contributed to the defeat of the coalition, which began to disintegrate soon after the election. Several leftist groups and communist splinter parties formed an electoral coalition, the United Left (Izquierda Unida--IU), to participate in the election, which obtained slightly better results than the left did in 1982.

The surprise feature of the 1986 elections was the resurgence of the center vote, indicated by the tripling of the ballots cast for the Democratic and Social Center (Centro Democratico y Social--CDS). Its leader, Suarez, continued to be a popular figure on the Spanish political scene. Given the disarray at both ends of the political spectrum, the CDS had a chance to develop into the major opposition party.

In spite of the PSOE's electoral victory in June 1986, dissatisfaction with the policies and the actions of the Socialist government had been mounting, and it increased even more as the year drew to a close. The early months of 1987 saw the strongest outbreak of social unrest in Spain since the 1930s. Demonstrations by university and secondary school students were followed by increasingly violent labor strikes. Doctors and teachers joined railroad workers and farm laborers in protesting the low wages and the high unemployment that had come in the wake of the government's economic austerity policies. Contributing to the growing unrest was an escalation in Basque terrorism and popular revulsion over a bomb that caused the deaths of many innocent civilians. Polls indicated a decline in confidence in Gonzalez, whose immense popularity had heretofore been unaffected by such vicissitudes.

Elections held in June 1987 at the municipal and the regional levels, as well as those for the European Parliament, confirmed the declining support for the Socialist government. Although the PSOE remained the largest single party, it obtained only 37 percent of the municipal vote, down from 43 percent in 1983. The June elections resulted in a further erosion of the AP, which was under the new leadership of Antonio Hernandez Mancha. The CDS emerged, strengthened, as the fulcrum of the center, although it was not yet in a position to present a challenge to Socialist dominance.

Dissatisfaction with the PSOE government was also evidenced within the Socialist party itself. In October 1987, Nicolas Redondo, leader of the Socialist-controlled General Union of Workers (Union General de Trabajadores--UGT), resigned his seat in parliament in protest against the government's 1988 budget. He criticized the government for favoring employers' interests over those of the working class.

Most businessmen approved of the market-oriented economic policies of Gonzalez, which had succeeded in reducing the annual inflation rate, from 15 percent in 1982 to below 5 percent in 1987, and in raising annual economic growth rate to 4.5 percent. The price paid for these accomplishments, however, was an unemployment rate of 21 percent, the highest in Europe, and an increasingly alienated labor force. The UGT joined with its communist counterpart, the Workers' Commissions (Comisiones Obreras--CCOO), in staging joint protests in October and in November 1987 and a general strike in December 1988.

At the Socialist party congress held in January 1988, Redondo and other left-wing socialists accused Gonzalez of betraying the workers and of forsaking the socialist cause. They urged a relaxation of anti-inflation measures in order to allow for an increase in wages and in pensions. They also called for greater investment in public works and for a concerted effort to deal with the unemployment problem.

In contrast to the growing dissatisfaction with the government's economic policies, there was widespread approval when Gonzalez decided to demand a reduction of the United States military presence in Spain, in keeping with the pledge he had made at the time of the NATO referendum. In December 1987, the government notified the United States that it would have to remove its seventy-two F-16 fighter bombers from Spain by mid- 1991. The two countries reached agreement in principle in January 1988 on a new, more limited base agreement to last eight years.

Spanish popular opinion also responded favorably to indications that there might be hope for an end to the terrorist violence that had claimed more than 750 lives in a 20-year period. In November 1987, the major political parties signed an antiterrorist pact in which they pledged to work peacefully for the resolution of conflicts in the Basque Country, they condemned all forms of violence, and they called on the ETA to lay down its arms and to work through democratic channels. In February 1988, the government accepted an ETA proposal for a sixty-day truce and for the opening of formal peace negotiations. A major factor in bringing the ETA to hold talks was French cooperation, beginning in mid-1986, in hunting down the movement's leaders and in extraditing those who had sought asylum in France. The negotiators faced formidable obstacles, most notably the conflict between Basque demands for self-determination and constitutional provisions for the armed forces to uphold Spain's territorial integrity. Nevertheless, by mid-1988 prospects for an end to violence were brighter than they had been in many years.

After five and one-half years in office, the PSOE could take credit for significant accomplishments, in spite of rumblings on the left. Observers generally conceded that the austerity measures carried out by the government, while far removed from socialist concepts, were necessary in order to revive the economy, and they hoped that a healthier economy would ultimately resolve the unemployment problem. More in line with socialist policies were the government's measures to lessen the Roman Catholic Church's control of Spain's schools, to ease censorship laws, and to legalize divorce. The PSOE's foreign policy initiatives, gaining EC membership and reducing dependence on the United States, also received popular approval. The democratic process appeared to have taken root.

Spain

Spain - Political Parties

Prior to the arrival of participatory democracy in Spain in the late 1970s, Spanish citizens had scant experience with political involvement. Suffrage was extremely limited, electoral mechanisms were controlled and corrupt, and political parties were elitist. Under the Francoist regime, Spanish society was depoliticized; the only political formation officially sanctioned was the National Movement. Remnants of the socialist and the communist parties functioned underground, and they were subject to severely repressive measures.

After forty years without parliamentary elections, political parties were revived, and they proliferated in the months following Franco's death. Leftist parties that had been exiled or had functioned clandestinely, such as the communists and the Socialists, had existing organizations and ideological traditions to form the bases of renewed political activity. The center and the right, however, had no such structures in place, and they lacked experience in political involvement. The coalition party that was victorious in the first elections of the new democratic regime in June 1977, the center-right UCD, failed to develop a coherent political vision. Its brief period of success was due largely to the charisma of its leader, Suarez, and the party ultimately succumbed to its internal conflicts.

With the victory of the PSOE in 1982, Spain's political system moved from a moderate right-left division to a predominance of the center-left. Support for the PSOE had become less class-based and more widespread as Spain underwent economic transformation and as the party became less dogmatic. In general, the tendency of Spain's party politics has been toward the center, and support for extremist parties has declined markedly, which bodes well for the country's future stability.

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE) is the oldest political party in Spain. Founded by Pablo Iglesias in 1879 as a Marxist proletarian party, it evolved alongside the trade union UGT, which was the basis of its support. The goal of both organizations was to obtain a voice for the working class in the political arena. As the party began to win parliamentary seats in the 1920s and the early 1930s, its membership began to broaden to include intellectuals, writers, and teachers. The PSOE's first experience as a governing party was during the turbulent Second Republic, but its time of leadership was short-lived. The party experienced severe repression under Franco, and its leaders went into exile, primarily in France.

In the early years of the Franco dictatorship, the PSOE within Spain was almost obliterated. In succeeding years, the party's leadership in exile gradually lost touch with what was evolving inside the country. In the mid-1950s, socialist groups began to organize within Spain; and, in the 1960s a small group of activists, led by two young labor lawyers from Seville (Spanish Sevilla), Alfonso Guerra and Felipe Gonzalez, revived the PSOE and began to agitate for changes within the party.

The leaders in exile had fought in the Civil War, and they had strong feelings against compromising the ideological purity of their cause by collaborating with other forces opposing Franco. Conversely, the younger activists, with no personal memories of the Civil War, were willing to work with other antiFranco groups to the left as well as to the right of the PSOE. These young socialists, who had been strongly influenced by Social Democrats in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), also favored a more moderate ideology than the rigid Marxism of the old guard. By 1972 the struggle for power between these two groups had been won by the younger generation, and Gonzalez was elected secretary general of the PSOE at its Twelfth Congress in 1974.

During the transition to democracy, the PSOE essentially cooperated with the reform plans set forth by Suarez, as did the other major leftist groups. When the country's first free elections since the Civil War were held in June 1977, the PSOE became Spain's leading opposition party. While growing in popularity, however, the party was beset from within by profound ideological tensions. Although the Socialists had gained support by presenting an image of moderation to the electorate, this stance was vehemently attacked by the more radical members of the party, who criticized Gonzalez and his supporters for placing more emphasis on gaining votes than they did on advancing the interests of the workers.

This rift came to a head at the party's Twenty-Eighth Congress in May 1979. When Gonzalez failed in his effort to remove the term Marxist from the party's constitution, he resigned. Gonzalez was successful in his gamble that most PSOE members considered his leadership invaluable, and at an extraordinary congress held in September 1979, he was re-elected on his own terms. The party no longer defined itself as Marxist, and policies of moderation and pragmatism prevailed, thereby enabling the PSOE to appeal to a wider spectrum of society. This broader electoral base was a key factor in the Socialists' victory in 1982, when they increased their popular vote from 5.5 million in 1979 to 10 million.

Nevertheless, Gonzalez continued to emphasize economic modernization rather than traditional socialist policies, which resulted in increasingly vociferous opposition from his historical base of support, the labor unions. A poll taken at the end of 1987 revealed a steady, albeit not dramatic, decrease in popular support for the Socialists. Even so, in mid-1988 the PSOE, as governing party, had no serious rival.

Communist Party of Spain

The Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de Espana-- PCE) had its beginnings in Spain during the revolutionary upsurge that followed World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The Spanish communists did not become so strong a force as their counterparts in other European countries, however, largely because of the existence in Spain of strong socialist and anarchist movements that already occupied the left end of the political spectrum. PCE membership, never very large in the party's early years of activity, declined dramatically under the repression carried out by the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera in the 1920s. Communist influence on the left increased when the PCE ceased attacking the Socialists and other leftist organizations and shifted toward a popular front strategy in 1934.

During the Civil War, the leftist forces were again divided. The communists were intent on finishing the war against the fascist forces before beginning their social and political revolution, whereas other leftist organizations were not willing to postpone the restructuring of Spanish society. The communists were brutal in their suppression of competing leftist organizations, which led to the party's ostracism by the other anti-Franco forces in the post-Civil War period.

In the mid-1950s, the PCE began vigorous efforts to break out of its isolation and adapted policies designed to bring together a broad coalition of parties, under PCE leadership, to oppose the Franco dictatorship. Ironically, it was the Franco regime itself, by focusing its attacks on the PCE, that enabled the party to become a rallying point for dissident students and workers. The party built a political base around the trade union movement known as the CCOO, and by the end of the Franco era the PCE, under the leadership of Santiago Carrillo, was the most effective political organization in Spain.

The PCE failed to take the initiative as this authoritarian regime drew to a close, however, and expectations of a hegemonic role for the PCE on the Spanish left were not realized. Although PCE membership multiplied following the party's legalization in 1977, the PCE received only 9 percent of the popular vote in the elections held that year; dominance on the left went to the rival PSOE. After the PCE's share of the vote fell to 3.8 percent in the 1982 elections, internal tensions within the party reached crisis proportions, and Carrillo's leadership began to be questioned.

As had been the case for the PSOE, the PCE found that the burden of dogmatic Marxism reduced its appeal for the electorate. Carrillo had succeeded in eliminating the word "Leninism" from the PCE statutes at a party congress in 1978, over substantial opposition. He continued to be criticized by the pro-Soviet militants within the party, who urged him to take a more revolutionary approach. At the same time, a more Europeanoriented group, known as the renovators, agitated for modernization and for more internal debate within the party.

In addition to ideologically based dissension, there was also general dissatisfaction with Carrillo's increasingly inflexible leadership. His repeated purges of those members who opposed him further decimated and demoralized the party. Following the PCE's decisive defeat in the October 1982 elections, Carrillo resigned as secretary general of the party; he was replaced by Gerardo Iglesias.

In succeeding months, splinter groups broke away from the PCE, further depleting its support to form pro-Soviet or MarxistLeninist parties. Among these were the pro-Soviet Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (Partido Comunista de los Pueblos de Espana--PCPE) and the Communist Party of Spain--Marxist-Leninist (Partido Comunista de Espana--Marxista-Leninista--PCEml). Within the PCE, Carrillo strongly opposed Iglesias's policies. He was particularly critical of the latter's proposal to form a coalition of all progressive forces that were to the left of the PSOE. This conflict led to Carrillo's expulsion from the central committee of the party, in April 1985. He subsequently organized and led the Committee for Communist Unity (Mesa para Unidad de los Comunistas--MUC), which in December 1986 formed a new proSoviet party named the Spanish Workers' Party-Communist Unity (Partido de los Trabajadores de Espana-Unidad Comunista--PTE-UC). By the end of 1987, there were indications of efforts on the part of the PCE, PCPE, and the PTE-UC to unify the three communist parties in time for the next general elections. The PCE and the PCPE, together with several other small leftist parties, formed an electoral coalition, the IU, to contest the national elections in 1986 as well as the regional and municipal elections in 1987.

The PCE convened its Twelfth Party Congress in February 1988 amid mounting agitation for a major revitalization of the party, which was plagued by financial problems and by a lack of unity. Although Iglesias had initiated the policy of a united left and had ended the decimating party purges, critics felt that stronger measures as well as more effective leadership were necessary to mobilize the left and to improve the PCE's showing at the polls. At the party congress, Julio Anguita was chosen to succeed Iglesias. Party members reaffirmed their commitment to workers' interests, and they adopted policies aimed at attracting environmentalists and pacifists to their ranks.

Popular Alliance

The Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular--AP) was a conservative right-wing party founded in 1976 by former Franco ministers under the leadership of Fraga, who had helped to prepare the way for reform during the Franco era and who had expected to play a key role in post-Franco governments. He underestimated the popular desire for change and distaste for Francoism, and he advocated an extremely gradual transition to democracy. Although Fraga had originally intended to convey a reformist image, his party was perceived by the electorate as both reactionary and authoritarian. Fraga's own outbursts of temper and the close ties of many of the AP candidates to the previous regime contributed to this perception. When elections were held in June 1977, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote.

In the months following the 1977 elections, dissension erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. The more reactionary members voted against the draft constitution, and they advocated a shift to the right. Fraga, however, wanted to move the AP toward the political center in order to form a larger centerright party. Most of the disenchanted reactionaries left the AP, and Fraga and the remaining AP members joined other more moderately conservative party leaders to form the Democratic Coalition (Coalicion Democratica--CD). It was hoped that this new coalition would capture the support of those who had voted for the UCD in 1977, but who had become disenchanted with the Suarez government. When elections were held in March 1979, however, the CD received only 6.1 percent of the vote. Deeply disappointed, Fraga resigned as head of his party.

By the time of the AP's Third Party Congress in December 1979, party leaders were reassessing their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had merely confused the voters, and they sought to emphasize the AP's independent identity. Fraga resumed control of the party, and the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP.

In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership. He was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general elections held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right, and it became the major opposition party, securing 25.4 percent of the popular vote. Whereas the AP's parliamentary representation had dropped to 9 seats in 1979, the party allied itself with the small right-wing PDP and won 106 seats in 1982. The increased strength of the AP was further evidenced in the municipal and regional elections held in May 1983, when the party drew 26 percent of the vote. A significant portion of the electorate appeared to support the AP's emphasis on law and order as well as its probusiness policies.

Subsequent political developments belied the party's aspirations to continue increasing its base of support. Prior to the June 1986 elections, the AP once again joined forces with the PDP, and along with the PL, formed the CP, in another attempt to expand its constituency to include the center of the political spectrum. The coalition called for stronger measures against terrorism, for more privatization, and for a reduction in spending and in taxes. The CP failed to increase its share of the vote in the 1986 elections, however, and it soon began to disintegrate.

When regional elections in late 1986 resulted in further losses for the coalition, Fraga resigned as AP president, although he retained his parliamentary seat. At the party congress in February 1987, Hernandez was chosen to head the AP, declaring that under his leadership the AP would become a "modern right-wing European party." But Hernandez lacked political experience at the national level, and the party continued to decline. When support for the AP plummeted in the municipal and regional elections held in June 1987, there was increased likelihood that it would be overtaken as major opposition party by Suarez's CDS.

Democratic and Social Center

The Democratic and Social Center (Centro Democratico y Social--CDS) was organized shortly before the October 1982 elections by Suarez, who had been the principal architect of the transition to a democratic system after the death of Franco. After he resigned as both prime minister of Spain and president of the UCD in January 1981, Suarez continued to struggle for control of the party machine. When he failed in his bid to regain party leadership in July 1982, he abandoned the party he had created and formed the CDS. The new centrist party fared poorly in the October general elections, gaining only two parliamentary seats.

By 1986 the party's fortunes had improved dramatically under the leadership of the former prime minister. In the June elections, the CDS more than tripled its share of the vote, which was 9.2 percent in 1986, compared with 2.9 percent in 1982, indicating that many who had previously voted for the UCD had transferred their support to the CDS. In the electoral campaign, Suarez had focused on his own experience as head of the government; he had criticized the PSOE for not fulfilling its 1982 election promises, had advocated a more independent foreign policy, and had called for economic measures that would improve the lot of the poor. This strategy enabled him to draw some votes from those who had become disillusioned with the PSOE.

In the municipal and the regional elections held in June 1987, the largest gains were made by the CDS. A poll taken at the end of 1987 revealed even stronger support for the party, and it gave Suarez a popularity rating equal to that of Gonzalez. Suarez's call for less dependence on the United States appealed to the latent anti-Americanism in the populace, and his advocacy of a greater role for the state in providing social services and in ensuring a more equitable distribution of income struck a responsive chord among the workers, who were growing increasingly impatient with Gonzalez's conservative economic policies. Nevertheless, it remained to be seen how far Suarez's populist rhetoric would take him in his quest to challenge the PSOE.

Other National Parties

Smaller parties emerged during the 1970s and the 1980s, and they frequently became part of various coalitions. The PDP had been a component of the UCD, but it re-established its separate identity in 1982, joining with the AP for the October 1982 electoral campaign and forming part of the CP during the June 1986 elections. The PL, founded in 1977, also allied with the CP in 1986. The centrist Democratic Reformist Party (Partido Reformista Democratico--PRD), established in 1984, stressed decentralization and greater independence for local party leaders. A new radical right-wing party also emerged in 1984, the Spanish Integration Committees (Juntas Espanolas de Integracion). Founded by former Franco ministers, the party presented an updated version of the Falangism of the Franco regime. Another extreme right-wing party, the National Front (Frente Nacional-- FN), was formed in October 1986. On the left, the radical Progressive Federation (Federacion Progresista--FP) called for greater decentralization and for a neutralist foreign policy.

Special interest groups also established political organizations. The Spanish Green Party (Partido Verde Espanol-- PVE) convened its first party congress in February 1985. The group focused on wide-ranging environmentalist concerns, and it opposed NATO membership for Spain. There was also a Feminist Party (Partido Feminista--PF) that focused primarily on education.

Regional Parties

Spain's system of political parties was complicated by the existence of regional parties that were active both at the regional level, and, when they had seats in the Cortes, at the national level. In most autonomous communities, politics was dominated by regional affiliates of one of the two national parties, the PSOE and the AP, with the PSOE controlling the greater number of regions. In some of the autonomous communities, however, these regional offshoots had to form coalitions with truly local parties if they wished to govern. Only the Basque Country and Catalonia had regional parties that were strong enough to set the political agenda; the most important were the PNV and the Catalan electoral coalition; Convergence and Union (Converg�ncia i Unio--CiU). These two moderately right-wing parties routinely won seats in the Cortes, and the CiU did well enough in regional elections to govern Catalonia, if it chose, without the aid of coalition partners. It was also the only regional party that had a decisive role in politics on the national level. This foremost exponent of Catalan nationalism occasionally supplied important parliamentary support to the UCD in the late 1970s. By far the second most important party in Catalonia was the regional offshoot of the PSOE, the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya--PSC).

The Catalan party system in general was characterized by pragmatism and by moderation. By contrast, the Basque national parties were beset by polarization, fragmentation, and political violence. In 1986 a group of PNV dissidents, unhappy with both the party's economic conservatism and its willingness to cooperate with the PSOE's stern antiterrorist measures, split from the party to form the more radical organization named Basque Solidarity (Eusko Alkartasuna--EA). In addition, there were two more extreme Basque nationalist groups, the Basque Left (Euskadiko Ezkerra--EE) and the HB. The more radical of these was the HB, which included Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and ultranationalist groups and which was closely linked to the ETAM . The party emphasized social revolution and armed struggle for Basque independence. The EE party was believed to be tied to the less violent ETA Political-Military Front (ETA Politico-Militar-- ETA-PM). These nationalist parties almost invariably won seats in the Cortes.

Spain

Spain - Political Interest Groups

The revitalized pluralism that accompanied liberalization in Spain after Franco gave rise to new forms of popular participation in the country's political process. At the same time, it redefined the existing political forces, such as the army and the Roman Catholic Church. Article 9 of the 1978 Constitution calls on public authorities to facilitate the participation of all citizens in the political, the economic, the cultural, and the social life of the country. After forty years of depoliticization, Spanish citizens began to play an increasingly active role in the nation's development, through involvement in the various interest groups that were established or reactivated along with the political parties.

Labor

The labor movement, which had been a major component of support for the Republican forces in the Civil War, was brutally suppressed after the Nationalists came to power. Vertical syndicates replaced trade unions, and strikes were outlawed. Nevertheless, mounting strike activity in the 1960s and the 1970s, which persisted in spite of severe reprisals, testified to the strength of the labor movement, which was a key factor in propelling Spain toward a democratic form of government.

The political changes that swept through Spain in the wake of liberalization were not accompanied by commensurate changes in social and economic conditions. One of the reasons for this was the labor movement's reluctance to voice strong criticisms of the governing UCD for fear of provoking a military coup. Because of the army's apparent ambivalence toward the nascent democratic system, the parties on the left and the labor movement, which normally would have been expected to agitate for a significant restructuring of the economy and of society, adopted an attitude of cooperation and consensus with the government. Although this stance contributed to the success of the transition process, it nevertheless had the effect of postponing necessary societal reforms. The consequences of this delay were a salient factor in the labor unrest that reached crisis proportions in the late 1980s.

Decree laws in March and in April 1977 legalized trade unions and introduced the rights to strike and to engage in collective bargaining. The 1978 Constitution delineates the rights of unions to defend their interests. It grants to all citizens, except members of the armed forces and the judiciary, the right to join a union. It also guarantees them the right not to join one. The first major labor legislation enacted under the 1978 Constitution, the Workers' Statute that came into force in 1980, further elaborated the rights of workers. It included guarantees pertaining to a minimum wage and to social security, and it stipulated that labor relations were to be worked out between unions and management, with no direct government involvement. The statute outlined the format for collective bargaining, recognizing the right of the elected representatives of the workers to negotiate on their behalf.

The basic freedoms and rights of unions were given more detailed treatment in the Organic Law on Trade Union Freedom, which went into effect in August 1985. This law spelled out the negotiating role to which larger unions were entitled, and it prohibited any form of discrimination on the part of employers. An earlier government labor statute called for syndical elections to be held every two years, and these provided an indication of the national strength of the labor unions.

The two principal unions were the UGT and the CCOO. The UGT, which was founded in 1888 and which had a long tradition of close ties with the PSOE, was a composite of autonomous local unions, each of which consisted of workers engaged in the same type of activity, who were organized on a provincial or regional basis. The UGT favored the idea of increased power at the local level, and allowed local unions to call work stoppages independently. In the 1982 union elections, the UGT gained a greater share of the vote than the CCOO, which had dominated previous syndical elections.

The CCOO has a shorter history than the UGT, having developed out of locally organized groups of workers that functioned both legally and clandestinely during the Franco dictatorship. Reforms enacted in the late 1950s allowed for the election of factory committees that rapidly evolved into permanent bodies representing the interests of the workers. Although the founding members of this new labor movement were independent socialists and leftist Roman Catholics as well as communists, it was the PCE that emerged as the dominant force within the movement; the majority of leadership positions were held by PCE members.

As these workers' organizations, called commissions, grew in strength and began to proliferate, the Francoist authorities cracked down, outlawing them in 1967. This did not stop their activities. By the time of Franco's death, the CCOO was the dominant force in the labor movement. It subsequently declined in strength, in part because of the PCE's decreased electoral support and the concomitant ascendancy of the PSOE.

Like the UGT, the CCOO was organized into federations of workers, based on the type of work they performed. These groups were in turn linked together as confederations in territorial congresses. A national congress met every other year. The structure of the CCOO was more centralized than that of the UGT; decisions made at the top were expected to be carried out throughout the lower echelons of the union.

The CCOO claimed to be politically independent, but the union had strong historical links with the PCE, and its important leaders were also prominent communists. Communist ideology prevailed, although the union began assuming a tactical distance from the PCE in the 1980s, as the party became weakened by internal divisions and lost support at the polls.

The UGT made no effort to de-emphasize its links with the PSOE. Both union and party frequently reiterated their common aspirations, although there were disagreements between them as well as within their respective organizations. The political ties of both the UGT and the CCOO were salient factors in the rivalry that existed between the two unions.

In addition to these two major unions, other labor organizations remained active and influential in Spain in the late 1980s. The Workers' Syndical Union (Union Sindical Obrera-- USO) was among those that developed in opposition to the Franco regime. Many of its founding members had been involved in the Catholic workers' organizations, and they were strongly anticommunist. At the same time, they sought to replace capitalism with control of production by the workers. Militant in its early days, the USO had evolved into the most politically conservative of the major federations by the 1980s.

A more radical trade union, the anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labor (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo--CNT), was the second oldest labor organization in Spain; it had been a major political force during the Second Republic. Failing to reestablish its working-class base after the Franco period, it found its principal support among white-collar workers. It boycotted syndical elections as elements of bourgeois democracy and preferred direct action strategies.

Two smaller unions that developed as splinter groups from the CCOO were the extreme left Confederation of United Workers' Unions (Confederacion de Sindicatos Unitarios de Trabajadores-- CSUT) and the United Syndicate (Sindicato Unitario--SU). Both were linked to Maoist political parties; their aim was to present a distinctly radical alternative to the moderation of the major federations. Although they gained some support in the 1978 union elections, their influence has steadily declined.

In addition, there were regional unions, two of which gained sufficient support to qualify for a formal place in negotiating procedures. These were the Basque Workers' Solidarity (Eusko Langilleen Alkartasuna-Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos--ELASTV ), which was closely linked to the PNV, and the National Galician Workers' Union (Intersindical Nacional de Trabajadores Gallegos--INTG).

Although trade unions were highly visible and influential in the political process, they all, with the exception of the ELASTV , suffered from small memberships. While studies indicated that less than 20 percent of the wage-earning population was affiliated with a union, even fewer of these workers maintained their dues payments, leaving the trade unions in a financially weak position.

Nevertheless, labor unions continued to maintain a high profile in the political arena. Throughout 1987 and 1988, periodic strikes plagued the PSOE government and disrupted the day-to-day functioning of the country. These strikes had the backing of the UGT. Discontent within the labor movement was dramatized when the UGT leader, Redondo, formerly close to Gonzalez, resigned his seat in parliament in protest against government policies. He gave voice to the widespread feeling that the PSOE's economic policies were benefiting business at the expense of the working class. In October 1987, the UGT and the CCOO agreed to stage joint demonstrations against the government's pay and pension policies, and in December 1988 they staged a general strike.

Business

Throughout the Franco years, a relatively small financial elite of businessmen and bankers exercised a considerable amount of power through personal influence and connections rather than through support from organized interest groups. Moreover, the interests of the business community were generally compatible with those of the Franco dictatorship: both wanted stability and economic prosperity. In the later years of the regime, business leaders, influenced by their contacts with Western Europe, came to favor more economically liberal policies; many of these leaders became vigorous proponents of economic and political modernization.

Many members of the financial elite under Franco continued to hold positions of authority after his death. Constitutional and statutory provisions enacted under the new democratic regime provided more formalized structures to represent their interests and those of the wider business community. In the early days of democratic government, a large number of employers' organizations came into being. Some of these were based on regions; a larger number were organized according to the type of business activity involved. In 1977 these diverse organizations were brought together in the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organizations (Confederacion Espanola de Organizaciones Empresariales--CEOE). This group subsequently became one of the strongest supporters of the AP. A separate confederation, the Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Firms (Confederacion Espanola de Pequenas y Medianas Empresas--CEPYME), was incorporated into the CEOE in 1980. It maintained a special status within the larger confederation, and when agreements were reached with the government and the unions, the CEPYME was a separate signatory.

The CEOE was a highly consolidated organization, representing almost all of Spain's companies, other than those that were owned or controlled by the government. Two other national associations endeavored, with little success, to become the representatives of smaller-scale businesses: the General Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Firms of Spain (Confederacion General de las Pequenas y Medianas Empresas del Estado Espanol--COPYME) and the Union of Small and Medium-Sized Firms (Union de la Pequena y Mediana Empresa--UNIPYME).

In addition to employers' organizations, chambers of commerce endeavored to further the economic interests of their members by providing a variety of services to the firms and the individuals they represented. They had an international role as well, and they assisted in export promotion and trade missions.

The greatest degree of political influence within Spain's business community was exercised by the country's large private banks. During the Franco regime, the banking sector provided crucial financial support for Franco, and he in turn enacted measures that were to its benefit. For example, he prohibited the founding of new banks from 1936 to 1962, thereby further concentrating the power of the larger banks. These banks controlled large sectors of industry, directly and indirectly, and they collaborated with government institutions in directing Spain's economic expansion.

The traditionally powerful position of the banks was eroded somewhat during the economic recession of the 1970s and by increased government intervention in banking under the democratic regime. The inability of the leaders of the largest banks to transcend their mutual rivalries also attenuated the influence of this potentially formidable interest group. Nevertheless, they remained the single largest grouping of economic and financial interests in Spain, with close links to the government. Banks gained additional leverage by providing financial assistance to the frequently short-funded political parties.

Roman Catholic Church

Church and state have been closely linked in Spain for centuries. With the reinstitution of the Inquisition in Spain in the fifteenth century, the state employed draconian measures to enforce religious unity in an effort to ensure political unity. Strong measures to separate church and state were enacted under the short-lived Second Republic, but they were nullified by the victorious Nationalists. In the early years of the Franco regime, church and state had a close and mutually beneficial association. The loyalty of the Roman Catholic Church to the Francoist state lent legitimacy to the dictatorship, which in turn restored and enhanced the church's traditional privileges.

After the Second Vatican Council in 1965 set forth the church's stand on human rights, the church in Spain moved from a position of unswerving support for Franco's rule to one of guarded criticism. During the final years of the dictatorship, the church withdrew its support from the regime and became one of its harshest critics. This evolution in the church's position divided Spanish Catholics. Within the institution, right-wing sentiment, opposed to any form of democratic change, was typified by the Brotherhood of Spanish Priests, the members of which published vitriolic attacks on church reformers. Opposition took a more violent form in such groups as the rightist Catholic terrorist organization known as the Warriors of Christ the King, which assaulted progressive priests and their churches.

Whereas this reactionary faction was vociferous in its resistance to any change within the church, other Spanish Catholics were frustrated at the slow pace of reform in the church and in society, and they became involved in various leftist organizations. In between these extreme positions, a small, but influential, group of Catholics--who had been involved in lay Catholic organizations such as Catholic Action--favored liberalization in both the church and the regime, but they did not enter the opposition forces. They formed a study group called Tacito, which urged a gradual transition to a democratic monarchy. The group's members published articles advocating a Christian democratic Spain.

The church continued to be in opposition to the Franco regime throughout the dictatorship's final years. The Joint Assembly of Bishops and Priests held in 1971 marked a significant phase in the distancing of the church from the Spanish state. This group affirmed the progressive spirit of the Second Vatican Council and adopted a resolution asking the pardon of the Spanish people for the hierarchy's partisanship in the Civil War.

At the Episcopal Conference convened in 1973, the bishops demanded the separation of church and state, and they called for a revision of the 1953 Concordat. Subsequent negotiations for such a revision broke down because Franco refused to relinquish the power to veto Vatican appointments. Until his death, Franco never understood the opposition of the church. No other Spanish ruler had enacted measures so favorable to the church as Franco, and he complained bitterly about what he considered to be its ingratitude.

Because the church had already begun its transformation into a modern institution a decade before the advent of democracy to Spain, it was able to assume an influential role during the transition period that followed Franco's death. Furthermore, although disagreements over church-state relations and over political issues of particular interest to the Roman Catholic Church remained, these questions could be dealt with in a less adversarial manner under the more liberal atmosphere of the constitutional monarchy.

A revision of the Concordat was approved in July 1976 by the newly formed Suarez government. Negotiations soon followed that resulted in bilateral agreements, delineating the relationship between the Vatican and the new democratic state. The 1978 Constitution confirms the separation of church and state while recognizing the role of the Roman Catholic faith in Spanish society.

Within this basic framework for the new relationship between the church and the government, divisive issues remained to be resolved in the late 1980s. The church traditionally had exercised considerable influence in the area of education, and it joined conservative opposition parties in mounting a vigorous protest against the education reforms that impinged on its control of the schools. Even more acrimonious debate ensued over the emotionally charged issues of divorce and abortion. The church mobilized its considerable influence in support of a powerful lobbying effort against proposed legislation that was contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine governing these subjects. The passage of a law in 1981 legalizing civil divorce struck a telling blow against the influence of the church in Spanish society. A law legalizing abortion under certain circumstances was passed in August 1985 and further liberalized in November 1986, over the fierce opposition of the church.

Another manifestation of the redefined role of the church was contained in measures aimed at reducing, and ultimately eliminating, direct government subsidies to the church. As part of the agreements reached in 1979, the church concurred with plans for its financial independence, to be achieved during a rather lengthy transitional period. At the end of 1987, the government announced that, after a three-year trial period, the church would receive no further direct state aid but would be dependent on what citizens chose to provide, either through donations or by designating a portion of their income tax for the church. Although the church's exempt status constituted an indirect subsidy, the effect of this new financial status on the church's ability to wield political influence remained to be seen.

Although church-state relations involved potentially polarizing issues, the church played a basically cooperative and supportive role in the emergence of plural democracy in Spain. Although it no longer had a privileged position in society, its very independence from politics and its visibility made it an influential force.

Opus Dei

The most influential Catholic lay group during the Franco period was the controversial Opus Dei (Work of God). This group did not fit conveniently into any political category. Although it denied any political aims, its members played pivotal roles in the modernization of the economy under Franco and in the subsequent liberalization of politics and government. At the same time, they were theologically conservative, and their desire for modernization was far from radical. They believed that economic reforms would improve society to the extent that thoroughgoing political reforms would be unnecessary.

Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by an Aragonese priest, Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer y Albas, and it was subsequently recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as its first secular religious institution. Although attention has been drawn primarily to its activities in Spain, it is an international body with members and associates throughout the world. Members take a vow to dedicate their professional talents to the service of God and to seek to win converts through their missionary zeal. The organization in Spain has emphasized professional excellence, and it has expected its members to serve in important government positions.

During the late 1950s and the 1960s, Opus Dei members came to control the economic ministries, and they occupied other important cabinet posts as well. This was in keeping with the organization's aim of influencing the development of society indirectly. Opus Dei recruited its members from among the brightest students, which encouraged a sense of elitism and clannishness. Because of this clannishness and the secrecy that surrounded the organization, some critics termed it the "Holy Mafia."

The Opus Dei technocrats were largely responsible for devising, introducing, and later administering the economic stabilization program that formed the basis of Spain's economic development. They encouraged competition as a means of achieving rapid economic growth, and they favored economic integration with Europe. Although these policies implied eventual political as well as economic liberalization, this was not Opus Dei's avowed goal; the group remained socially conservative, stressing personal piety and orthodox theology.

With the advent of democracy, Opus Dei lost much of its influence, and it was condemned by the more progressive forces in both the Catholic hierarchy and Spanish society for having propped up a repressive regime. Its stature was somewhat restored under Pope John Paul II, who viewed the orthodox Catholicism of the organization with favor. Opus Dei remained influential in the area of education as well as in certain sectors of the financial community.

Military

Military intervention in politics has been a recurring theme in Spain since the end of the Napoleonic wars. From 1814 to 1936, Spain experienced no fewer than fifty-four attempts by the army or by groups of officers to intervene against the civilian authority. Twelve of these succeeded in overthrowing the existing regime or in abrogating its constitution. The form each of these interventions took was that of a pronunciamiento (pl., pronunciamientos), whereby a group of rebelling officers would "pronounce" what it wanted the civilian leaders to do.

The support of the armed forces was an essential factor in maintaining Franco's forty-year dictatorship. Franco was always aware of the importance of this support, and he managed to foster the belief that the army's interests would be served best by the continuation of his rule. Franco restored to the army its role of guarantor of the nation's values. At the same time, Franco was aware of the dangers of a politicized army. He retained firm control of the military establishment and prevented any individual officer from gaining a power base. If a military leader became too popular or began to question Franco's policies, he was quickly removed from any position of influence.

Following the death of Franco, King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Suarez were able to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy by proceeding with extreme caution and consulting with the military leadership throughout the process. Thus, the military leaders retained the belief that they had the right to be consulted on matters of national importance. The democratic leftists were also aware of the ever-present possibility that reformist measures could alienate the military and could provoke a coup attempt, which led them to accept many compromises throughout the transition period.

The role of King Juan Carlos was vital in gaining the army's acceptance of the new democratic regime. He had been trained in military academies, and he understood the viewpoint of the officer corps. He made a point of establishing close ties with the armed forces after Franco's death in order to gain their loyalty to him as Franco's chosen successor. At the same time, he was able to keep the government informed as to how far it could go in the reform process without provoking a military reaction.

Although many officers did not care for the political reform program set forth by Suarez, the military leaders did not express open opposition to the democratization process until the legalization of the PCE in the spring of 1977. They felt betrayed by Suarez, who had promised not to take such a step, and although there was no coup, they protested vehemently.

The independence with which the army leaders had expressed their revulsion at the government's decision highlighted the possibility that a powerful military organization could limit popular sovereignty. Subsequently, measures were taken to affirm the supremacy of civilian control. At the same time, the government took steps to assuage military opinion by allocating funds for the modernization of military equipment and for raising military salaries. Efforts also were made to rationalize the military career structure and to eliminate bottlenecks in the promotion process.

In succeeding months, the armed forces and the civilian government coexisted uneasily. Intermittent rumblings were heard from reactionary army leaders, who retained an antidemocratic mentality and who could not come to terms with their new position in society. The armed forces seethed with plots for military takeovers, and the government's leniency toward conspirators, rather than mollifying the military leaders, encouraged the plotters to more daring acts. This unstable situation was exacerbated by the escalation of terrorist violence. Army dissidents perceived the government as allowing the country to descend into anarchy, and military unrest culminated in the dramatic coup attempt of February 23, 1981. This attempted takeover was thwarted by the decisive intervention of King Juan Carlos, but conspiracies continued to be uncovered.

When the Socialists came to power in 1982, the deterrent power of the armed forces was still a factor to be considered. The PSOE government continued to be cautious in dealing with issues affecting the military, although it took a firmer stance than did its predecessors. As rumors of impending coups quieted, and as extreme right-wing parties failed to gain popular support, the government undertook stronger legal measures to bring the armed forces under the political control of the prime minister as well as to modernize and to streamline the military organization.

A significant aspect of the military reorganization was the emphasis on the armed forces' role in defending the state from external, not internal, enemies. This was reinforced by Spain's entrance into NATO. This new outward focus, combined with the general stability and conservatism of the government, helped to make military intervention in the political realm both impractical and unlikely.

Spain

Spain - Media

Newspapers and Periodicals

Under the rigorous censorship that prevailed during the Franco regime, only news favorable to the government could appear in the press, and there was little concern for the veracity of such reports. With no reliable coverage of political events, reportage diminished to a few items pertaining to society news, sports, or business.

A new press law, approved in 1966, provided a degree of liberalization for publications and eliminated prior censorship, although newspapers were expected to exercise self-censorship. The 1966 law did not usher in freedom of the press, but it did expand the scope of news that could be published; newspapers even began debating what forms of government might evolve after Franco's death.

Although the 1978 Constitution guarantees the right to disseminate information, as of mid-1988 the 1966 press law had not been replaced, and regulations dating from the Franco years had been used in attempts to control journalists who published articles offensive to the government. In addition, some observers believed that government subsidies to the press, beginning in 1979, threatened to compromise true freedom of the press.

The early post-Franco years witnessed a proliferation of newspapers and magazines, although many of these were short lived. The enthusiasm for publishing was not matched by a commensurate eagerness for reading on the part of the populace. In part because of the prolonged repression of the dictatorship, Spaniards had lost the habit of reading newspapers. Whereas about 2,000 newspapers had appeared daily during the Second Republic, in the 1980s there were only 130. This drastically reduced figure was an indication of the population's distrust of the press, although the growth of radio and television newscasts was also a factor. Spain's per capita newspaper circulation was far below that of most West European countries, and in the late 1980s less than 10 percent of the population regularly bought a daily newspaper.

By all accounts, the most influential newspaper was El Pais, founded in 1976. It played a critical role in guiding the formation of opinion in the early days of Spanish democracy. The paper maintained a liberal, factually objective viewpoint, and it appealed primarily to well-educated citizens. In the mid1980s , it was the country's largest daily newspaper, with a circulation of 350,000 daily and 590,000 on Sundays.

The much older ABC was a conservative-monarchist newspaper. Founded in 1905, it enjoyed wide popularity during the Franco years, but its circulation declined after 1975. El Alcazar represented ultra-right wing opposition to democratic policies. Many of its articles pertained to the armed forces, because it appealed to a sector of society still nostalgic for Francoism. The oldest continuously published newspaper in Spain was La Vanguardia, founded in 1881 and published in Barcelona. Until the early 1980s, this conservative paper had the largest circulation in the country.

Other major daily newspapers included the Catholic rightist Ya, which strongly defended the church's position on such issues as divorce and abortion, and Diario 16, which began publication in 1975 as a spinoff of the respected weekly, Cambio 16. Marca was a popular daily newspaper, devoted exclusively to sports news. Founded in the early days of the Franco regime, it enjoyed immense popularity between 1940 and 1970, primarily because sports coverage was the only uncensored news permitted by the government. There were also a number of important regional newspapers in Catalonia (Avui) and in the Basque Country (Deia in Bilbao and Egin in San Sebastian) that published, at least partly, in the respective regional language; the circulation of each usually ran between 40,000 and 50,000 daily.

One large news agency, EFE, dominated the distribution of news. This national agency, which the government owned and subsidized, was controlled by the Ministry of Transportation, Tourism, and Communications. The government frequently exercised its prerogative of appointing EFE directors. At the same time, financial aid from the state contributed to the significant growth of the agency. Observers questioned the appropriateness of newspapers' receiving their information from an agency so closely linked with the government.

In addition to newspapers, Spain had a large number of weekly and monthly periodicals that filled in the gaps in newspaper coverage. Two leading weeklies specialized in political reporting: Cambio 16, founded in 1972; and its more recent, somewhat sensationalist rival, Tiempo. Other periodicals for the most part concentrated on entertainment, social events, sports, and television. One of the most popular magazines in Spain, Interviu, combined unrestrained political reporting with equally uninhibited photography. This blending of political and sexual liberation proved highly attractive to Spanish readers, after Franco's repressive policies in both these areas. The best-selling magazine in Spain was the weekly television review Tele-Indiscreta, the large circulation of which indicated the immense popularity of television throughout the country.

Radio and Television

Spain was served by four major radio networks in the late 1980s: Radio Nacional Espanola (RNE), controlled by the government; Radio Cadena Espanola (RCE), which consisted of stations formerly owned by Francoist groups; Cadena de Ondas Populares Espanolas (COPE), a network supported by the Roman Catholic Church; and Sociedad Espanola de Radiodifusion (SER), the largest and most popular at the commercial networks.

The 1975 Geneva Conference restricted the number of networks that might operate on the medium wave in each country. In Spain, the four major networks plus one Catalan station broadcasted on the medium wave as well as on frequency modulation (FM). A number of new stations and networks began broadcasting on FM after the government redistributed the franchises in 1982. The quality and the popularity of this FM programming had increased to such an extent, that in the mid-1980s, more Spaniards were listening to FM than to medium wave. In 1986 there were approximately 10.8 million radio receivers in the country.

Radio broadcasting was regulated by the General Bureau for Radio Broadcasting and Television (Direccion General de Radiodifusion y Television). In October 1977, the government relinquished its monopoly on radio news dissemination and declared that it would no longer require the country's nonstate radio stations to broadcast government news bulletins. News coverage became both faster and better after the end of RNE's monopoly, as was evidenced dramatically during the February 1981 coup attempt, when radio correspondents provided vivid and timely descriptions of the night's events to a worried population, in a manner that neither the slower print media nor state-run television could match.

Of the various forms of communications media, television occupied a unique position in the shaping of Spanish social values and institutions. Spaniards received a relatively small proportion of their news and information from the print media, and they spent more time watching television than the people of any other country in Western Europe except Britain. Even most of the poorest homes had television sets, which numbered approximately 10 million in 1986.

Television was controlled by a state monopoly, RadioTelevision Espanola (RTVE), the responsibility for which was shuffled from one ministry to another in the 1970s and the 1980s. Television as well as radio continued to be subject to intense government scrutiny and censorship, through the early years of the post-Franco era, and the Francoist notion of television as an arm of government did not end with Franco's death. As part of agreements stemming from the Moncloa Pacts, a governing body was established to guarantee RTVE's objectivity. This body, called the Administrative Council, was to consist of six members elected by the Congress of Deputies in order to ensure that it would reflect the political composition of the Cortes. This council was less than vigilant in its watchdog role, however, and during the late 1970s and the 1980s there were many cases of political and financial corruption as well as mismanagement on the part of RTVE.

Spain had two major television channels: one ultrahigh frequency (UHF); and the other, very high frequency (VHF). They operated under the country's only television network, Television Espanola (TVE), which in turn was under the jurisdiction of the RTVE. In the 1980s, several autonomous governments obtained permission to build television transmission facilities for broadcasting in their regional languages.

The most noteworthy development regarding television in the late 1980s was the passage of a bill in April 1986 which, when carried out, will end the state monopoly on television by allowing three new private television channels to operate under the supervision of an independent broadcasting authority. The bill included restrictions to prevent private investors from gaining a monopoly control of a station, and it also established requirements about programming. The bill became law on April 4, 1987, and observers noted that the introduction of commercial television might lead to an improvement in the rather erratic programming of Spanish television.

Spain

Spain - FOREIGN RELATIONS

Spain's remote position on the southwest periphery of Western Europe has affected much of its history, even when it belonged to the Roman, the Habsburg, and the Napoleonic empires. The Pyrenees have presented a formidable land barrier against both invasions and influences from the north. At the same time, Spain's location at the western entrance of the Mediterranean has impelled the country to play the role of an important maritime power and has enabled it to act as a bridge among Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

In the nineteenth century, Spain, beset by political instability deriving from the cataclysm of the French Revolution as well as from its own later failure to participate in the Industrial Revolution, withdrew behind its borders. After suffering a humiliating defeat by the United States in the Spanish-American War and losing its last colonies in the Philippines and the New World, Spain's focus turned even further inward. Neutral in both world wars, Spain found that its isolation deepened during the Franco years, intensified by the ostracism the country experienced because of its associations with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

After the Nationalist victory in the Civil War, the Franco regime devoted itself primarily to domestic affairs, relegating foreign considerations to a secondary position. The primary concerns were to establish political stability and to ensure economic reconstruction and development. Spanish diplomacy was an instrument with which the government tried to obtain political legitimacy and to gain Spain's acceptance by the international community. Franco played the leading role in pursuing these foreign policy goals, as he did in every other aspect of his government.

Spain's pariah status following World War II strengthened Franco's internal position, solidifying the support of the Spanish people behind their beleaguered leader. Nevertheless, as Spain began to benefit from mounting Cold War tensions, from signing an agreement with the United States, and from achieving United Nations (UN) membership, the siege mentality of the Spanish people lessened.

Relations with ...
<"87.htm"> the European Community
<"88.htm"> NATO
<"89.htm"> the United States
<"90.htm"> Latin America
<"91.htm">Gibraltar, Ceuta, and Melilla
<"92.htm"> the Middle East
<"93.htm"> the Soviet Union
<"94.htm"> France

Spain

Spain and the European Community

As Spain began to emerge from its postwar isolation, successive Franco cabinets sought to establish closer ties with Europe. After Franco's death, this became Spain's major diplomatic goal. The desire to be recognized as a member of the West European democratic societies was a primary motivating factor in Spain's attempts to gain membership in the European Community (EC).

Spain had become an associate member of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) in 1958 and a full member of that organization's successor, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 1959. It also had gained membership in the World Bank. The EC, however, was much more reluctant to have Spain join its ranks. Agreement for a preferential commercial trade pact was reached in March 1970, after six years of negotiations, but it was a strictly economic accord. The continued existence of undemocratic governmental institutions in Spain was strongly resented by member countries of the EC, and it continued to be a barrier to Spanish accession.

Shortly after Spain's first democratically elected government in more than forty years came to power in June 1977, Prime Minister Suarez dispatched his foreign minister to Brussels to present Spain's formal application to join the EC. The major political parties in Spain, divided over other issues, all firmly supported this attempt to advance Spain's modernization as well as its international legitimation. Prospects for the approval of this application were enhanced by the implementation of democratic policies by the post-Franco governments. European attitudes toward Spain began to improve, and Spain was admitted to membership in the Council of Europe, in November 1977. The Spanish government's determination to continue moving in the direction of closer relations with Europe was manifested in the creation in February 1978 of a new cabinetlevel position, that of minister in charge of relations with Europe.

Nevertheless, negotiations for Spain's accession to the EC were complicated and protracted. After Spain had acquired the necessary democratic credentials, the economic implications of the prospective Spanish accession caused misgivings among EC members. Spain's level of economic development was significantly lower than that of other member nations, and its industrial sector was in need of profound structural reform. There were also difficulties concerning Spain's fishing fleets. It was in the area of agriculture, however, that the potential consequences of Spanish membership created the greatest concern among EC members, particularly France. These and other factors would necessitate substantial increases in budget expenditures on the part of the EC, which was already experiencing a financial crisis.

After lengthy bargaining, agreements were reached on these issues, and a Treaty of Accession was signed in the summer of 1985. On January 1, 1986, Spain finally entered the EC, along with Portugal. The terms of the Treaty of Accession were less than favorable to Spain, making the country a net contributor to the EC budget for several years, but there was no popular or governmental protest. A major nonpartisan foreign policy objective had been achieved, and most Spaniards savored the longawaited feeling of formal inclusion in the West European society of nations.

Their enthusiasm was tempered in subsequent months, as issues, such as the barring of Spanish fishermen from Moroccan waters because of an EC dispute with Morocco, made clear that not all aspects of EC membership would be beneficial to Spain. A poll taken in the spring of 1987 revealed that a large majority of Spaniards believed that entry into the EC had not helped Spain. Farmers were particularly dissatisfied with the consequences of the EC's Common Agricultural Policy. Nevertheless, the same poll indicated that a majority of Spaniards favored EC membership and that their sense of being "citizens of Europe" was increasing.

Spain

Spain and NATO

Even though popular and official opinion had been virtually unanimous in favoring Spain's accession to the EC, considerable doubts were expressed with regard to Spanish membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Spain's significant geographical position, astride some of the world's major sea, air, and land communication routes, made it a valuable potential partner for the alliance. Spanish proponents of NATO membership argued that these same geopolitical considerations made such membership equally advantageous to Spain, because the country's strategic location could make it an obvious target in any major conflict unless it had allied support. They also maintained that integration into NATO would ensure sorely needed modernization of Spain's armed services in addition to the securing of adequate national defense. A corollary hope was that NATO membership would reorient the focus of army leaders away from reactionary preoccupations and toward defense of the West.

Many political forces in Spain, particularly the socialists and the communists, did not agree that full membership would benefit the country's defense and foreign policy aims. On the contrary, they felt it would raise the level of tension between the rival power blocs and would make Spain a more likely target in any future conflict with the Soviet Union. Moreover, opponents of NATO membership pointed out that NATO would be of no assistance in an area of primary concern to Spain: the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which are located in Morocco and which are outside the geographic zone of application of the North Atlantic Treaty. They also maintained that NATO would be of no benefit to Spain in the country's long-standing effort to recover Gibraltar, because it could be assumed that other NATO members would support Britain on this issue. Resentment of the United States as the principal supporter of the Franco regime was another factor influencing those who opposed Spain's entry into NATO.

Although Suarez had announced Spain's intention of applying for NATO membership, his Union of the Democratic Center (Union de Centro Democratico--UCD) government remained somewhat divided over the question. After Suarez resigned in 1981, his successor, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, gave high priority to this issue, arguing that Spain's entry into NATO would expedite negotiations for integration into the EC. In December 1981, the Cortes approved membership in NATO by majority vote, over the vigorous opposition of a large leftist minority. Spain officially joined NATO in May 1982.

Leaders on the left protested bitterly that NATO membership had been pushed through parliament in violation of the consensus that had been the basis of all major political decisions since 1977. The Socialists organized a protest campaign, and the PSOE leader, Gonzalez, made the NATO issue a major feature of his electoral platform in 1982, promising a popular referendum on withdrawal from NATO in the event of a Socialist victory.

No immediate steps were taken to fulfill this promise, following the overwhelming Socialist victory in October 1982, although the PSOE confirmed in June 1983 that it would campaign in favor of withdrawal when the referendum was held. Many Socialists took part in a large anti-NATO demonstration organized by the PCE in June 1984, but Gonzalez was having second thoughts, and he found reasons to delay the referendum. Although neutralist opinion remained strong in Spain, the government evolved toward a position favoring continued membership in NATO, which it perceived as the principal guarantor of European security. A significant factor in this change of position was the fear that withdrawal from NATO might become an insuperable obstacle to entry into the EC.

When the referendum eventually was set for March 2, 1986, Gonzalez engaged in a vigorous campaign for continued, but limited, NATO membership. The government presented NATO membership as a corollary to EC membership, and it warned of the serious economic consequences of a vote to withdraw. In spite of opinion polls indicating the probability of a negative outcome, the government secured a clear margin of victory for its position. With almost 60 percent of the electorate participating, 52.6 percent of the voters supported Spain's continued membership in NATO, while 39.8 percent opposed it. Spain remained the sixteenth member of NATO.

The following year, in a move seen as emphasizing the European aspect of the defense system, Gonzalez made a bid for Spanish membership in the Western European Union (WEU), a sevennation European defense grouping, originally formed in 1948, that experienced revitalization in the 1980s. On April 19, 1988, Spain and Portugal were formally invited to join the organization.

Spain

Spain and the United States

The anti-American sentiment that figured significantly in Spain's relations with NATO had its roots in the historical rivalry between the two countries for control of the territories of the New World. The Spanish-American War ended this rivalry, stripping Spain of its remaining colonies and leaving a residue of bitterness toward the United States.

In the years following the Spanish-American War, economic issues dominated relations between Spain and the United States, as Spain sought to enhance its trading position by developing closer commercial ties with the United States as well as with Latin America. A series of trade agreements signed between Spain and the United States in 1902, 1906, and 1910 led to an increased exchange of manufactured goods and agricultural products that benefited Spain's domestic economy. Cultural contacts and <"69.htm"> tourism also increased.

The emotions of the American public were stirred profoundly by the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain, and approximately 3,000 United States citizens volunteered to serve in the Spanish Republican Army, although the United States government remained adamantly neutral. Following the Nationalist victory, much of public opinion in the United States condemned Franco's regime as a fascist dictatorship, but the United States government participated in various Allied agreements with Spain, aimed at ensuring that Franco would not permit the Iberian Peninsula to be used by Adolf Hitler against Allied forces.

The 1953 Pact of Madrid between Spain and the United States provided for mutual defense as well as for United States military aid, and it brought to an end Spain's postwar isolation. It did not end anti-Americanism in Spain, however. Francoist leaders resented having to accept what they considered to be insufficient military supplies in return for basing rights. They also chafed at United States restrictions against the use of American equipment in defending Spain's North African territories in 1957. This anti-American sentiment was bipartisan in Spain. Whereas Francoists resented the United States for its democratic form of government, the opposition parties in Spain perceived the United States as the primary supporter of the Franco regime and therefore as a major obstacle to the democratization of Spain.

Following the death of Franco in 1975, the United States welcomed the liberalization of the Spanish regime under King Juan Carlos and sought to bring Spain further into Western military arrangements. In 1976 the bilateral agreement between Spain and the United States was transformed into a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. In addition to renewing United States basing rights in return for United States military and economic aid, this treaty provided for a United States-Spanish Council intended to serve as a bridge to eventual Spanish membership in NATO.

During the early years of democratic rule, the government's focus was on consolidating the parliamentary system, and foreign policy issues received less attention. However, a point of contention persisted between the governing UCD and the Socialist opposition over Spain's relations with NATO and with the United States.

When Calvo replaced Suarez as prime minister in 1981, he made vigorous efforts to gain approval for Spanish membership in NATO, and shortly after this was accomplished a new executive agreement on the use of bases in Spain was signed with the United States in July 1982. This agreement was one of a series of renewals of the basic 1953 arrangement, providing for United States use of strategic naval and air bases on Spanish soil in exchange for United States military and economic assistance.

Many Spaniards resented the presence of these bases in Spain, recalling the widely publicized photograph of United States president Dwight D. Eisenhower, throwing his arms around Franco when the first agreement on bases was signed. There were occasional popular protests against these reminders of United States support for the dictatorship, including a demonstration during United States president Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to Spain.

The Socialists had consistently advocated a more neutralist, independent stance for Spain, and when they came to power in October 1982, Gonzalez pledged a close examination of the defense and cooperation agreements with the United States. A reduction in the United States military presence in Spain was one of the stipulations contained in the referendum, held in 1986, on continued NATO membership. In keeping with this, the prime minister announced in December 1987 that the United States would have to remove its seventy-two F-16 fighter-bombers from Spanish bases by mid-1991. Spain also had informed the United States in November that the bilateral defense agreement, which opinion polls indicated was rejected overwhelmingly by the Spanish population, would not be renewed. Nevertheless, in January 1988 Spain and the United States did reach agreement in principle on a new base agreement to last eight years. The new military arrangements called for a marked reduction of the United States presence in Spain and terminated the United States military and economic aid that had been tied to the defense treaty.

Spain

Spain and Latin America

One of Spain's major foreign policy objectives since the advent of democracy has been to increase its influence in Latin America. Spain has a special interest in this area because of historical ties and a common linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage. In the post-Franco years, economic investments and diplomatic initiatives were added to the more nostalgic links between Spain and its former colonies.

Relations between Spain and Latin America have undergone profound transformation since Spain's imperial days. Resentment of Spain as the imperial power continued long after the colonial period, because many Latin Americans blamed Spain for their lack of progress and for their problems with democratization. In the early years of independence, the attitude of most Latin Americans was one of disdain for Spain. This changed, following the Spanish-American War in 1898. The devastating defeat inflicted upon Spain by the United States combined with increased United States interference in Latin America led the two Hispanic areas to draw closer together in the face of a common enemy. Both Spain and Latin America began to re-emphasize their common ties of culture, language, and religion, although trade, diplomatic, and political relations between the two areas remained minimal.

During the 1950s, modernized methods of communications and transportation facilitated closer contacts between Spain and Latin America. Trade increased, and Spain's rapid economic growth in the 1960s and the 1970s enabled the country to approach its relations with Latin America from a position of greater economic strength. A paradoxical foreign policy phenomenon during this period was the refusal of the fiercely anticommunist Franco to break off relations with Fidel Castro Ruz's Marxist Cuba. In this instance, historical ties appeared to take precedence over ideology.

After Franco's death, Spain's transition to a democratic form of government was paralleled by the establishment of various forms of democratic rule in some Latin American countries. The timing of these governmental changes was largely coincidental, although Spain offered its transition process as an example for Latin America to follow.

The democratization process in Spain caused a reorientation of Spanish foreign policy. Under Suarez, Spain pursued a more aggressive foreign policy, which included giving increased attention to Latin America. Both Suarez and King Juan Carlos made official visits to most of the Latin American countries, and Spanish investment in the area increased markedly. When war broke out between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) in the spring of 1982, Spain supported Argentina's claim to the islands, even though the Spanish government opposed the military junta that ruled Argentina at the time.

When the Socialists came to power in 1982, Foreign Minister Fernando Moran asserted that the amount of influence Spain could exert in Europe and on the United States would depend on Spain's maintaining special relationships outside these areas, particularly with Latin America. In keeping with this policy, the Socialist government created a special assistance program for Latin America that had a budget of tens of millions of dollars in 1985.

A particular area of concern for Gonzalez was the intensifying conflict in Central America. Under his leadership, Spain took an active part in the Contadora Group, an association of Latin American republics seeking peaceful solutions to the bloody struggles in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

Before becoming prime minister, Gonzalez had been involved in the articulation of the Socialist International's policies toward Latin America and had served as the president of that organization's committee for the support of the Nicaraguan Revolution, which was formed in 1980. Although Gonzalez was sympathetic to the early goals of the Sandinistas, who had seized power in 1979, he later became highly critical of their radical Marxist policies. He favored the more pragmatic approach of Latin America's social democrats.

It became increasingly apparent that the prime minister's moderate views were in marked contrast to the Marxist orientation of his foreign minister. Gonzalez was also less stridently antiAmerican than Moran. Although critical of United States actions in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, the prime minister recognized that the United States had legitimate interests in the area and that it could not be excluded from the negotiating process. These increasingly divergent views between Gonzalez and his foreign minister led to the latter's removal in the summer of 1985.

Moran's successor, Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, followed a more restrained approach--calling for Spain to be the IberianAmerican conscience of Europe--in furthering Spain's active role in Latin America. Spain continued to support efforts for a peaceful resolution to the strife in Central America. In January 1988, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega requested that Spain take part in the verification of the peace process in Central America. Gonzalez accepted the proposal, provided that the other Central American governments were in agreement and that a ceasefire were in effect. The prime minister reiterated his support of the Contadora Group and emphasized that the countries involved had the ultimate responsibility for finding a solution to the conflict. He also called for an end to United States aid for the armed forces fighting against the Sandinista government (Contras) so that the peace plan could be implemented.

Although Spain had again become a significant presence in Latin America in the 1980s, there was no indication that it was on the way to supplanting the United States in the region, or, indeed, that it wanted to assume that role. At the same time, a vital sense of Hispanic commonality between Spain and Latin America appeared likely to continue.

Spain

Spain - Gibraltar, Ceuta, and Melilla

The return of Gibraltar to Spain has remained a foreign policy goal for all Spanish rulers since the area was lost to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Franco's fierce determination to regain Gibraltar culminated in his closing the frontier between Spain and Gibraltar in 1969. Governments that came to power after the regime was democratized engaged in calmer but equally persistent negotiations with the British and with the residents of Gibraltar over the future of the area. These discussions ultimately resulted in the April 1980 Lisbon Agreement, which was more symbolic than substantive, but which served as a framework for subsequent Anglo-Spanish negotiations.

The Spanish government had intended to reopen the frontier between Spain and Gibraltar shortly after the signing of the Lisbon Agreement, but it postponed this step in anger at a series of British actions, including the use of Gibraltar as a military depot and refueling base during the Falklands War in 1982. The frontier was finally reopened in the early days of the Socialist government that was elected later in the year.

Spain's entry into NATO added new complications to the Gibraltar question, including Spain's insistence that Gibraltar was a NATO naval base as well as a British one, a contention that the British government denied. The Spanish navy refused to participate in joint military exercises with the British while Britain maintained a military base on Gibraltar. At the same time, Spanish membership in NATO provided a vehicle for negotiations on the Gibraltar question in a less competitive atmosphere. It also put Spain in a better bargaining position.

The ultimate issue underlying the various twists and turns of the Gibraltar problem was sovereignty. The approximately 30,000 residents of Gibraltar remained adamantly opposed to becoming Spanish citizens, although the UN continued to pass resolutions condemning British rule in Gibraltar as a colonial situation. As a more flexible and democratic government took root in Spain, however, and as the country achieved greater integration into Europe through its EC and NATO memberships, the possibility of a resolution of the sovereignty issue became less remote. The Socialist government, unlike its predecessors, emphasized that any solution to this problem must be in keeping with the interests of Gibraltar's inhabitants. This led observers to conjecture that--through some type of regional autonomy structure, provided for in the 1978 Constitution--a long-term plan for a form of autonomous government for Gibraltar acceptable to all concerned, might be possible.

In much the same way that Spain laid claim to Gibraltar as part of its territory, Morocco maintained that the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla were integral parts of Morocco's sovereign territory. The two North African towns and their tiny offshore islands, the last vestiges of Spain's far-flung empire, had belonged to the Spanish crown for centuries. Both were administered as integral parts of Spain and had predominantly Spanish populations; Spain insisted that they remain Spanish.

Ceuta, which had become a Spanish possession following the union with Portugal in 1580, was historically a focal point for trade between Europe and Africa. Located only thirty kilometers from metropolitan Spain, it could reasonably be regarded as a natural prolongation of the Iberian Peninsula. Although Ceuta was used for military purposes, it also functioned as a fishing port, and it had close economic links with Andalusia.

There were almost no direct links between Ceuta and the other Spanish enclave of Melilla, which had come under Spanish rule in the late fifteenth century. Melilla was situated more than 500 kilometers away from the Iberian Peninsula, and it did not benefit from the lively tourist traffic that Ceuta enjoyed. Because of its geographical location, Melilla also was subject to greater influence from its Moroccan hinterland than was Ceuta. In addition, more Moroccans actually lived in Melilla than in Ceuta, where the atmosphere was far more European.

There were protests on the part of the Muslim communities in both enclaves over the passage, in July 1985, of an aliens law, which required all foreigners in Spain to register with the authorities or be expelled. Tensions were especially high in Melilla, where less than one-third of the Muslim community held Spanish nationality. Promises from Madrid to assist in integrating the Muslims of both enclaves into Spanish society angered portions of the local Spanish communities, who in turn demonstrated in support of the aliens law.

The outlook for continued Spanish sovereignty in the two enclaves appeared uncertain. When Spain joined the EC in 1986, Ceuta and Melilla were considered Spanish cities and European territory. They joined the EC as part of Spain, and they hoped to receive financial assistance from the EC's Regional Development Fund. Spain also hoped that membership in NATO, while providing no security guarantee to Ceuta and Melilla, might make Morocco's King Hassan II less likely to move against territory belonging to a NATO member; however, Spanish demands for the return of Gibraltar could fuel Moroccan claims to the North African enclaves.

Mounting tensions between the Spanish and the Muslim populations in Ceuta and in Melilla added to the precariousness of the Spanish position. In addition, a few leaders in both the socialist and the communist parties expressed sympathy for Morocco's claim, contributing to a growing fear of abandonment on the part of the enclaves' inhabitants. A resolution of this tenuous situation did not appear imminent in mid-1988.

Spain

Spain and the Middle East

In spite of tensions with Morocco over control of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain continued to consider itself as a bridge between the Arab world and Western Europe. In an effort to maintain good relations with Islamic states, the Spanish government adopted a pro-Arab stance in most Middle East conflicts. For years, Spain was the only West European country that did not recognize Israel. The Spanish government finally established diplomatic relations with the Israeli state in January 1986. When that step resulted in widespread criticism from the Arab states, Spain hastened to compensate by according diplomatic status to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission in Madrid in August 1986. More generalized efforts to increase Spain's role throughout the Middle East and Africa in the 1980s included expanded trade and cultural relations.

Spain

Spain and the Soviet Union

Diplomatic relations between Spain and the Soviet Union were not formally reestablished until February 1977, although there had been extensive trade and cultural contacts between the two nations for decades, and Spain had already established diplomatic relations with the other Warsaw Pact states. This long delay was due in part to Franco's strong anticommunist feelings, but more particularly to his bitterness toward the Soviet Union for its support of the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. Anti-Soviet sentiment was not limited to the Francoists in the years following that devastating upheaval. Because of the attempts of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, to destroy leftist elements within Spain that were independent of Moscow, anti-Francoists as well as Franco's supporters were deeply distrustful of Moscow.

Spain's relations with the Soviet Union were also significantly affected by its relations with the United States. From the point of view of the Soviet Union, it was vital to maintain a strong position in the Mediterranean in order to guard the gateway to the Black Sea and to assure access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar. At the same time, the United States, wary of Soviet expansionist aims, had sought to protect this vital region by the establishment of United States bases on Spanish soil. The opposition that subsequently developed within Spain to the continued presence of United States forces there received encouragement from the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, when Moscow delivered a warning to Madrid, referring to the "negative consequences" that could ensue if Spain joined NATO, Spain's foreign minister curtly remonstrated with the Soviet Union for attempting to interfere in Spain's internal affairs.

Spanish public opinion has generally not shared United States fears of a serious Soviet military threat. Spaniards have favored increasing trade with the Soviet Union, and they have welcomed Moscow's support of Spain's demand for the "decolonization" of Gibraltar. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, however, Spain moved toward an increasingly independent stance, and this applied to its relations with the Soviet Union as well as with the United States. Such independence also was reflected in the efforts of the PCE to reduce its ties to Moscow. In the mid-1980s, Spain's major difficulty with regard to the Soviet Union concerned the extensive espionage activities that had been mounted from the large Soviet embassy installed after Franco's death and that had led to the expulsion of several Soviet diplomats.

Spain

Spain and France

While the Soviet Union appeared to most Spaniards to be too far away to pose any immediate threat, Spain's most difficult relations in the postwar years were with its European neighbor to the north, France. Spain's relations with France had been troublesome since 1945, when France called for an Allied invasion of Spain to remove the last fascist dictator. When the United States and Britain refused to agree to such a course of action, France permitted anti-Franco forces to use France as a base for organizing raids into Spain. When some of these infiltrators were apprehended and executed in Spain in 1946, the Allies declared that Spain would be forbidden to join the UN while under the control of Franco. France was also the major obstacle to Spain's entry into the EC. Responding to the pressures of a strong agricultural lobby, the French government succeeded in delaying Spanish membership in the EC.

French policies also exacerbated Spain's most volatile domestic political problem, that of Basque terrorism. For years, France maintained a policy of providing sanctuary to terrorists, who were seen as "resistance fighters." This policy became less tenable, however, after the democratization of Spain. Following the appearance of terrorist activity within France itself, the policy of sanctuary was markedly restricted, and by 1986 France was cooperating with Spain in efforts to combat terrorist activity.

Spain

Spain - Bibliography

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Wyden, Peter. The Passionate War: The Narrative History of
     the Spanish Civil War. New York: Simon and Schuster,
     1983.

Spain

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