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Democratization: Learning from the Lessons of Others

9 September 2003, Ramallah

Spain’s Transition to Democracy: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution
Speaker: Mr. Alberto Ucelay

I am Alberto, a deputy consul general in the Spanish Consulate in Jerusalem . I arrived here only two weeks ago.

One of the basic ideas of our transition is from the outset, it was meant to be transition without violence break with the immediate past as painful as that could be in the moment. In 1975-1978, not everybody agreed that after 40 years of dictatorship should go free but eventually it was necessary to make painful sacrifices for the transition to start. This is one key idea. I will pinpoint for some factors that in my opinion can help explain why this experiment that started 25 years ago ended so far in success.

I will refer to historical, political, economic and social factors. I will also conclude by a final remark on the meaning of the word consensus in our political transition.

In less than 250 years, Spain had before the constitution of 1978. It had more than a dozen constitutions. There were often painful experiences, civil wars, oppression, and violence and have course failure of different political experiments. There were pendula movements, which go from extreme to extreme, rejecting each one of them. For example, although Spain had been a monarchy, at several points in history we tried to experiment with republics. Those often ended in violence, revolution. When time came in 1978 to decide what kind of political regime we wanted, everybody opted for a monarchy but with safeguards to make it a democratic movement throughout 200 years. Always something was achieved even minor achievements were gradually accumulated. This idea of accumulating positive experiences was not shared. It was based on pessimism. For instance, one of the kings that were eventually sent to exile after one of these revolutions went away saying that the Spanish people were ungovernable. They will never find a political regime that will integrate everybody. Of course he was proven wrong but it took 100 years to prove him wrong. So in spite of this pessimism, what history taught us as people are a willingness to learn from history and not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Intellectuals have a role in this learning process. According to political factors in 1978 when the transition started and the constitution text was drafted, one of the most agreements is everything should be based on two things: democracy and human rights.

This, from the outset, gives legitimacy to the experiment, and not only civil and political liberties were incorporated into a text but also social and cultural rights became part of the constitution. Several key decisions had to be made after what the nature of the political regime is going to be. Monarchy was one of the key agreements. Of course this was not without pain and political sacrifice also. The role of the king (Juan Carlos) is absolutely essential to explain our transition. Most of you will agree with me that it is always essential to have essential figure, sort of a referee of the political arena that is not subject to party politics that is universally respected and is allowed in certain liberties in dealing with different political parties and to ease the political process along. The central figure in our transition was undoubtedly King Juan Carlos. Also government and leadership are essential in this political factor. There has to be an effective change of hands in power; the government has to withdraw from spaces, areas, of power such as important sector of economy, the media, and access to resources that can share opinion in their favor.

The last aspect is the international insertion of transition. The political leader in our transition realized from the beginning that if we want to be successful after so many attempts, we needed to be solidly rooted in the international environment. Therefore, we need to know to which side we belong, and the priorities in our foreign policy. It was universally accepted that the Mediterranean , Latin America and Europe would be the three main areas in which we will project ourselves.

After talking about political factor, now I will talk about the economic landscape. Spain has a market economy and it's showing constantly a growth rate above European average, which seems a natural element of the economic landscape in our countries. The economic transition started well before the political transition in Franco's days.

The establishment of a reformist programmed to open up the Spanish economy. Now these elements of openness of opening the economy to the world sometimes and of course without paying for those most affected with the open up at the economy. Now Spain is one of the most open economies in the world and let me say that we all in Spain are grateful for this decision of opening up our economy instead of become a protectionist closed isolated in economy. There are also other important agreements a long the way, tax reform was achieved by a very important agreement in 1978. We are going to establish a functionary social market economy with social security, with services to the poor to the disabled. If we are going to promote quality in women, the state needs funds and the only way for the state to have resources to carry out this policy is of course a redistribute tax system that taxes are taken more from the rich than from the poor. Of course is not a very popular idea especially among the rich but eventually it found away in a place is a transition and it is now also a central element of our system. An important process pf modernization throughout the economy then started: banks for instances: from being the most inefficient and old financial sectors in Europe , they be came a gradual process of reform and opening the banks. Banks in Spain became one of the most efficient and open to foreign investment and they became the pioneer, the process of our country investing abroad and not just waiting for foreign funds to come to our country. Tourism also played an important role. This process also started before the transition, but the transition bought on the progress that held already been made to become one of the leading tourist market in the world. So market economy (to summarize this factor) within important social dimension was in my opinion, the reason that explains why Spain has failed economically so well until now. The last factor I would like to introduce is the social atmosphere that has characterized the evolution of our transition in these 25 years. Society had to change fast while the economy and the political environment was changing and this is of course always a painful process of adaptation that can be seen throughout many different aspects of social evolution. One very important aspect of this was the establishment of a large middle class is necessary to stabilize a transition that every body knew would be difficult from the start. Spain had not had a large base middle class for most of the 19th century and in the 20 th century society had gone through a very painful experience of a civil war that had 800 thousand people killed, only in three years. Now this creates divisions in society that take very long time to heel. This eventually mature around 1960s and 1970s with the creation of the large middle class that is unwilling to make risky experiments with political extremism and at once and above all stability. Then this stability is spread throughout the social structure into many different aspects. Education for instance: a decision was made in 1978 that education would not only be in the hands of the state of the government, but it will be a mixed system when there would be public schools private and religious school with state support. So there are three systems that coexist to give society all the options that society demands from religion education to civil non-religion education but throughout the spectrum education have to share the constitutional values that are the foundation of city as a whole. So that is a common demonstrator, the creation of civil rights that are shared by everybody. Of course also the press and the media have a very important role to play in our case and some e newspaper, some TV stations, some radios stations were inherited from the Franco era, but others were born along the way and eventually all of them, the ones that came the past and the new ones shape those democratic values and traditions that are gradually evolving in our country. The press and the media in Spain have always been aware of their role in the building of a democratic society. A key element of this is open and real debate of ideas and intrusion of the press in political life: to investigate corruption cases, to stir up in debates on social issues that interest every body. The press has always been aware of this role. Of course there have sometimes been excesses in this areas, but these are part of the learning process that I think every transition is in the last analysis in a learning process. Finally there could be many other factors, but I want to finish to open up for questions and for interventions and finally the structure of the family of traditional Spanish family started to change and has changed dramatically. This had negative effects: for instance the fertility rate has gone down in Spain from one of the highest in the world to be the lowest in the world. Its only now starting to pick up very slightly again after years of having a very depressed fertility rate. This is a consequence, of course. Its universally accepted of the incorporation of women to the labor market and of many other factors that effect the modernization and the erosion of the traditional family. But it has also of course very positive consequences in that it creates much more dynamic and much more modern society. Important decisions had to be made in 1987. some of these issues proved too difficult to settle in one constitutional text. So they were left open deliberately by the drafters of the constitution until further movement where the evolution of society could allow more peaceful, more quite and more rational, if you like, debate on these final issues until they became finally settled for maybe not finally but settled and accepted by everybody. Another idea I would like to offer to you in that, it is often impossible to make all the important decisions in one single moment. Something should be better left for later. I would like to conclude these two ideas:

First, putting the Spanish transition in historical perspective and professor Huntington will known for his political later theories about cultural class of civilization that are debated now and that are out of the realm of these conferences, but years before becoming famous for these class of civilizations ideas, he came up with a very interesting idea. He said that there have been in Europe and throughout the world different waves of democratization and in retrospect Spanish transition belongs to a wave of democratization that started in Greece and Portugal in 1974 and continued throughout Latin America and you put an end to military dictatorships that had evolved badly as a consequence of the cold war and of the result of the Second World War. So these historical factors also had explained and revolved around all the factors that I have explained.

But there is one factor, one idea that is in my opinion new and particular to the Spanish experience. And that is the most interesting lesson, in my opinion, to draw from our experience and it is assessed before the idea of consensus.

Now this idea and the word consensus was perhaps the most widely used and written and spoken word from 1975 to 1982. Even today when a political government in Spain makes an important decision, we have developed a tendency to check before whether or not that new policy comes in conflict with the original consensus that made the constitution and transition possible. So this constant referring back to the original consensus on the land, and on the other land this willingness is collective willingness to make this consensus not a petrified thing of the past but something that evolves with society if I think the most important experience to be drawn from our transition. Consensus does not mean, as some critics said back then, it doesn't mean that everybody gets what they want. Sacrifices have to be made by every body, and sometimes by very important sacrifices like I said when I refer to the socialist party abandoning their idea very dear to them of a republic. But this is absolutely necessary, this idea of self-sacrifice if you like is absolutely necessary you the building of a strong consensus that allows a successful democracy and a successful transition to be established.

The establishment of a reformist programmed to open up the Spanish economy. Now these elements of openness of opening the economy to the world sometimes and of course without paying for those most affected with the open up at the economy. Now Spain is one of the most open economies in the world and let me say that we all in Spain are grateful for this decision of opening up our economy instead of become a protectionist closed isolated in economy. There are also other important agreements a long the way, tax reform was achieved by a very important agreement in 1978. we are going to establish a functionary social market economy with social security, with services to the poor to the disabled. If we are going to promote quality in women, the state needs funds and the only way for the state to have resources to carry out this policy is of course a redistributive tax system that taxes are taken more from the rich than from the poor. Of course is not a very popular idea especially among the rich but eventually it found away in a place is a transition and it is now also a central element of our system. An important process pf modernization throughout the economy then started: banks for instances: from being the most inefficient and old financial sectors in Europe , they be came a gradual process of reform and opening the banks. Banks in Spain became one of the most efficient and open to foreign investment and they became the pioneer, the process of our country investing abroad and not just waiting for foreign funds to come to our country. Tourism also played an important role. This process also started before the transition, but the transition bought on the progress that held already been made to become one of the leading tourist market in the world. So market economy (to summarize this factor) within important social dimension was in my opinion, the reason that explains why Spain has failed economically so well until now.

Discussion

Questions: is it a holy document to you if not how succeeded in healing the wounds of your civilization in 1976. And this moment we are still in Palestine talking about our 1936 revaluation and think it was only yesterday, and you could not heel the most afflicted: weather i.e. was the Z ionist or the British. We could not heel the wounds of 1936. so the condition is it a holy document to how we succeeded if not tell us how it is proceeding to the idea of the civil war which we might be facing very soon in the Palestinian society, not necessarily Hamas and Fateh, but the tribal structure in Palestine today in the actions of a vision and a real crisis of leadership in Palestine today. The key element that is very dear to everybody in heart and mind, which is confusing a little bit. How come your king is the king of Jerusalem ? Is it fair to the constitution? And if it does it mean to you and how far it does mean to us since your nostalgic approach to Jerusalem in your culture and politics were very much implicit of knowing. Please!

Answers the first question: the holiness of the constitution: very important idea that I omitted in my speech. There has to be a certain holiness of the constitution. As I said, the core consensus has to be maintained throughout the political temptations to deviate from it. But on the other hand, you have to strike a balance. This can be seen in the sanctity or the holiness of the constitution. So far we have avoided reforming the constitution only when very minor aspect that was introduced by the treaty of European Union had to be incorporated into the constitution, but so far we have avoided reforming it, because said it was too early to do so. Some constitutions have built in a close form of non-reform ability and either definitively or over a period of time and to allow for a political debate to settle after the elaboration of the constitution. And now after 25 years of being applied in practice, a new concept has developed; it is called constitutional participation because Franco had abused the idea of a homeland. He had manipulated and he used it to his own advantage, so when 1978 came we were tired of patriotism. People did not like to use the flags red and yellow flag because it was closely associated with Franco. Now over the years, this was overcome but now Spaniards want to identify themselves with an idea of homeland or of patriotism that more related to the constitution than to the tribal ideas of Spain that we used in the past. This process of overcoming the tribal identity and in suiting to allegiance to a more politically based process in a very important element also. You asked about heeling the wounds:

In my opinion the wound just take long time to heel. There is no miracle solution for that. After 800,000 dead, it is no wonder that it took 40 years even more to heel those wounds. Even today there is some hatred left, some antagonism that dies hard and continues to present in our society. You cannot ignore that. One of those is perhaps the subsistence of an armed group that does not accept consensus that wants to use violence as means to keep items on the political agenda, and of course am vet erring to the ATA group in the Bask country. These wounds sometimes, persist and sometimes exist even today. It only takes time, but of course like you said, political leadership can help the process along to a great deal. It takes a brave leader of a society that is willing to make sacrifices and have a political ability to make them and to inspire allegiance, one that has legitimacy and that knows hoe to use their legitimacy to his advantage, I mean the advantage of the whole society. So time on one hand to heel social wounds and on the other hand political leadership to help this process along is I think absolutely essential. Then the king of Jerusalem . Yes before coming here I was interested to see and verify that even today the little of the king of Jerusalem is among the many titles that to this day belong to King Juan Carlos and that belong to his successors. I think that the fact we keep this title and explain or give testimony of how much the Spanish people identify themselves with the Arab world in general with the Palestinian people in particular. The king feels very strongly every thing that concerns Palestine . I don not think ever will mean to come to govern as king. All these traditions and ideas that come from the past even sometimes from a painful past because I don't ignore that this come from a painful experience for the Arab people, this pain of the Crusades. I think it is useful to clean to them. History should not be forgotten, we should learn from history.

Mr. Alberto Ucelay, Deputy Consul General, Spanish Consulate, Jerusalem

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