Spain is a country that functions a lot
like Federation, without actually being a
federation. When the country is a
federation, what that means is that it is
a union of partially self-governing
states under central government.
This sounds like Spain, which along the
countrywide government, has many
autonomous communities that are
self-governing. These include not only
the communities in the iberian peninsula
but also the insular territories such as
one community for the Balearic Islands
in the Mediterranean, and another for the
Canary Islands off the coast of Africa.
The cities of Ceuta and Melilla on Morocco's
side of the straight in north africa have
special status as autonomous cities.
While gibraltar on Spain side is not a
part of Spain and instead and overseas
territory of the UK. The autonomous
communities were established during
Spain's transition to democracy
following the death of dictator
Francisco Franco. The framers of the new
spanish constitution in 1978 wanted to
maintain a unified, indivisible, Spanish state.
So they were careful to deliberately not
make Spain a federation, but at the same
time needed to keep the Galicians, Catalans,
and Basques happy, who wanted more
autonomy after being suppressed by
highly centralized Franco Regime. Those
communities can sometimes have powers
that you even exceed those of states in
Federation's. Some have recognized
distinct nationalities, have their own
official languages, and some even collect
taxes independent of the spanish
government. So in practice Spain behaves
like a federation, but in theory the
Constitution only guaranteed a process
through which regions could become
self-governing, but did not itself
established or list the powers of these
entities. Instead the regions would
later gain their rights through a statute of
autonomy, which is similar to the process
of awarding devolved powers in
non-federations called unitary states. This
is an important distinction because in
general the Constitutions of Federations
clearly outline the division of powers
between the federal government and the
members. In unitary states the central
government can change the powers of its
sub-national divisions, while in
Federation the federal government must
respect the members rights and often
constitutional reforms require consent
from the members. But at the same time
the members must respect the powers of
the federal state and cannot
unilaterally secede. This distinguishes
Federation's from Confederations
which are union of sovereign states
which retain the right to secede at any
time. For example, Spain is a member of
the European Union with is like
a confederation, since member states can
leave by invoking article 50 of the
Treaty of Lisbon which established the
EU. Spain's complicated internal structure is
the result of its history. After the fall
of the Roman Empire the local varieties
of Latin used by the common people known
as vulgar latin slowly diverged into the
various Romance languages. For centuries
the north of Iberia was split between
many Christian kingdoms while the south was
under Muslim rule. In each of the
Christian kingdoms, vulgar latin diverged
into different languages, such as
Galician which is related to portuguese,
Leonese, Aragonese, and Castilian, which
are related to each other, and Catalan
which is distantly related to French, but
is more closely related to the Occitan
language that exists in southern France
before being mostly replaced by french.
The basque language in the Pyrenees Mountains,
is not a Romance language. It's not even
in the indo-european language family of
most modern European languages, and so
it's likely descended from a language
that existed in those mountains from before
indo-european languages spread into
Europe. The castilian language became
dominant following its spread during the
Reconquista, and became language of a
unified Spanish kingdom and is commonly
known as Spanish in other languages as
well as among some Spanish speakers.
However, Galician, Basque and Catalan
identities remain strong so they were
allowed to quickly established
autonomous communities by the method
outlined in the Constitution when Spain
became a democracy. The rest of Spain
gradually created their own autonomous
communities and now the cover all of
Spain's territory. The autonomous
communities are composed of one or more
provinces of spain, which are themselves
composed of municipalities. This means
most of Spain has four levels of
government: municipal, provincial, the
regional governments of the communities,
and the national government. The
autonomous cities in North Africa take
on the powers of a municipality, province
and a community. Some communities are
large and cover many provinces, but some
like Madrid, established specifically to
make administering the capital easier,
contain just one. In general all the
communities have control over their
finances and are in charge of education,
health, and social services.
But other powers are unequally
distributed among the communities. Some
communities have their own Civil Code,
which means they have their own method
of dealing with non-criminal legal
decisions, and these communities have
co-official languages along with Spanish:
Galicia has Galician and basque is a
co-official language in the Basque Country
along with the Basque speaking areas of
neighboring Navarre. Valencia has a
variety of catalan called Valencian, and
Catalan itself is co-official in the
Balearic islands and Catalonia.
Additionally Catalonia recognizes
occitan as co-official as it is spoken by some
in border regions. As well, Aragonese and
Asturian are considered protected
languages in their namesake regions, and
both Asturian and Galician are protected
in Castile and Leon. Catalonia, Navarre, and the
Basque Country have their own police
forces, while Navarre and the Basque Country
are communities of chartered regime,
which means they collect the taxes
within their territory and then send a
portion to the national government to
cover its responsibilities. All the other
communities are part of the common
regime where the situation is reversed.
Some communities notably catalonia want
more powers devolved, and there are some
desire in Spain to become fully
federalized. But currently Spain is still
technically a unitary state.
If you enjoyed this video you might like this
one about Russia or this one about Spain's
tiny neighbor Andorra which speaks
Catalan and has two princes: one is a
bishop in Catalonia, and the other is the
President of France.