Spain celebrates the 38th anniversary of its Constitution

USPA NEWS - Spain celebrated on Tuesday the 38th anniversary of the 1978 Constitution. The festive day began with the hoisting of a large national flag in the Discover Square in Madrid and a reception in Parliament, where an institutional event was held.

The leaders of the coalition between communists and populists, Pablo Iglesias, were not present at the Parliament, although other leaders of the formation were present, who criticized the use that the great parties make of the Constitution, violating, according to his words, the articles referred to are the fundamental rights of Spaniards. The spokesmen of the ruling Popular Party and the Socialist Party defended that the current Constitution safeguards the rights of citizens, although they admitted the possibility of reforming it to adapt it to the new times.

However, the shadow of the Catalan independence movement slows the attempts to reform the Constitution, which with almost four decades of life has become obsolete in some of its articles. There is a need for a constitutional reform that will hasten succession in the Crown, even though the heir to the throne of Spain is a princess and the Constitution speaks of "first-born" in masculine. Likewise, a reform is necessary that defines the structure of the State and the right of the regions to decide on their future integration in Spain. And it is this point that hinders the understanding between the Popular Party and opposition groups.

The President of the Spanish Government, the conservative Mariano Rajoy, acknowledged Tuesday his reluctance to address the constitutional reform in case Podemos, the coalition between communists and populists, who struggles with the Socialist Party to take the lead of the Spanish left, imposes a referendum of self-determination in Catalonia. Although the latest polls show a loss of popular support for independence, the threat remains in vogue, especially after the president of the regional Government of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, announced a referendum about the independence for the second half of 2017.

Meanwhile, the confidence of the Spanish in the political situation increases, according to the latest barometer of the Center for Sociological Research (CIS in Spanish), made after the inauguration of the new Government. Although the atomization of Parliament requires continuous negotiations between the Government and opposition groups, Spanish society believes that the legislature can be exhausted. This is helped by the Government's agreement with the new Basque leaders, which seems to defuse any independence threat in that region of northern Spain, and the direct support or abstention that receives the State budgets for 2017. But the legislature has just begun and the coming months will reveal to what extent Spain is governable.