During the Spanish transition, an administrative model of the State was drawn up based on the creation of seventeen autonomous communities. The economic data on the maintenance of this model are devastating. The largest source ...
During the Spanish transition, an administrative model of the State was drawn up based on the creation of seventeen autonomous communities. The economic data on the maintenance of this model are devastating. The largest source of public debt is found in the autonomous communities, and is several times that of the central State and all the municipalities combined. This paints an unwise scene, since to the reality of this gigantic debt we must add that the autonomous communities are the biggest cause of duplication of functions with other administrative entities, and of the increase in the volume of the State. These data lead us to point out that it is in the autonomous communities where the main cut in public spending should be carried out. And this can only be done by rethinking an administrative model that has proven economically unsustainable. Simply put, Spain cannot afford the luxury of supporting 17 governments, and the cow's teat in Europe is coming to an end. Consequently, it is time to think about designing a smaller, more efficient administration, with lower costs and closer to the citizen and their needs, in which the weight of civil society is greater and in which democratic exercise and citizen participation prevail.
The media wave that points to municipalities as the main cause of corruption is entirely self-serving and erroneous. Municipalities are the administration closest to the citizen, and where the actions of our politicians are most easily controlled by the citizens. The reason for the identification of cases of local corruption lies in this undeniable fact. Corruption that is by no means greater than in the autonomous communities. We cannot forget that most of the scandals have been reported by anonymous or little-known neighbors. Something unthinkable due to inaccessibility in the rest of the administrations. Municipalities are the most controlled administrations of all that exist, while the autonomous communities are the most opaque, according to all independent analyses. This control leads to a better use of economic resources and to avoid waste due to the more active presence of civil society and citizen participation. On the other hand, it is more democratic to reinforce the election systems in natural units close to the citizen, such as the municipality, than, for example, biased or at least dubious proposals such as open lists.
In that same proactive line, the greatest powers must be transferred to the municipalities with the correct financing. The municipalities have already assumed many powers unofficially, which are not financed correctly officially. In this lack of funds, which remain massively in the gigantic structures of the autonomous communities and which are wasted on totally dispensable campaigns that are alien to the real needs of the citizen, is the cause of the search for alternative financing by the consistories in the form of high municipal fees for fundamental services. This is to the detriment of the neighbors' pockets. And this problem is also behind numerous cases of corruption, since urban planning is one of the meager sources of municipal income, and which is the cause of the bad image of the construction sector, which is being excessively demonized, forgetting and ignoring the undeniable responsibility in the current crisis that banking entities have.
The more than doubtful effectiveness of the autonomous communities is evidenced in the assumption of national powers such as education, which has given rise to seventeen different educational systems, and to the lowest levels of training in our history. This is without forgetting an excessive and biased politicization whose greatest exponent is observed in communities governed by nationalist parties. The squandering of enormous budgets in autonomous bodies in an ineffective way has its counterpart in the assumption of important tasks by the municipalities, such as social assistance, without these functions having adequate financing. Hence, common sense tells us that there are powers such as the aforementioned education that should return to the central government, and others that should be transferred and financed to the municipalities. In addition, the existence of governments of different signs in a community and a municipality usually generates unusual situations of partisan confrontation that delay projects and ultimately harm the neighbor. Not to mention comparative grievances, which exist, between municipalities governed by mayors of the same party or the opposite within the same region. Andalusia and Madrid are common examples of this and it happens more frequently than it transcends through the media. On many occasions, the communities are limited to mismanaging state or European funds for projects that are developed in a specific municipality. In those cases, the question is obvious: why is it necessary to introduce the distorting element of that intermediary in that function, when the coordination of that project can be correctly assumed by the city council?
Likewise, the tasks of inter-municipal coordination and the realization of supra-municipal projects should reside in the provincial councils and the associations of municipalities. This would entail filling with content very important institutions for civil society, of which few citizens even know of their existence. Furthermore, we cannot forget that these institutions are participated by municipal representatives, and therefore more accessible to the citizen than the autonomous communities. I do not want to seem repetitive on the issue of proximity, but the quality of democracy is greater the closer the representative is, and therefore more evaluable by the voter. Most neighbors identify or know their mayor and councilors, but very few know the regional minister on duty. They are stopped on the street by the former and their claims or complaints are made known to them, while this does not happen to the latter. This leads to greater political and economic control of that administration.
The transfer of most of the human and economic resources existing today in the autonomous communities to the aforementioned municipal or supra-municipal entities would result in greater benefits for the neighbors, in addition to a necessary optimization of these resources. Spain cannot afford the luxury of continuing to waste time and money on these enormous structures, when there are others that can assume these powers more effectively, efficiently and democratically. The debate on the existence or the slimming down of the autonomous communities must begin and the proximity of the next elections may be an appropriate time for it. And in that debate it would also be edifying to include the necessary grouping of municipalities that in many cases are united, which would also lead us to have fewer municipalities, larger, with more resources and less administrative structure. But that is another topic that we will address another day.
César Román is the spokesperson for the Spanish Professional Association of Human Resources Directors.
