Madrid (EFE) 12 years old -, they meet this month of February, of this electoral year 2023, their 40th anniversary.
Congress of Deputies, late afternoon on February 22, 1983. As recorded in the session diary, the president of the chamber, the socialist Gregorio Peces Barba, announced that, after the vote, the Statute of Autonomy of Castile and León was approved “definitively” with the support of 199 of the 303 parliamentarians present, six against and 98 abstentions.
In the session that same afternoon, those of Madrid (300 votes in favor, one against and two abstentions), Extremadura (228 in favor, three against and 72 abstentions) and the Balearic Islands (206 in favor, one against) had been approved. and 97 abstentions) and three days later, on February 25, the king sanctioned the statutes with his signature, ordering “all Spaniards, individuals and authorities, to keep and have this Organic Law kept”, as has been written in each one of them.
The Autonomy Statute of Extremadura was published in the BOE the following day, February 26, with its consequent entry into force, and those of the Balearic Islands and Madrid on March 1, while that of Castilla y León appeared on March 2, at the same time as the Organic Law 5/1983, of March 1, by which article 144, c) of the Constitution was applied to the province of Segovia and, consequently, its incorporation into the brand new autonomous community was established. castellanoleonesa.
With these four laws, the territorial model still in force in Spain, which is still the subject of debate and continuous adjustment and revision proposals, was sealed – in the absence of the basic rules of Ceuta and Melilla, which did not see the light of day until March 1995.
All communities have turned 40 since 2019
Last summer, another seven communities -La Rioja, the Region of Murcia, the Valencian Community, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, the Canary Islands and the Foral Community of Navarra- completed their first 40 years of autonomy.
Three more, Andalusia, the Principality of Asturias and Cantabria, celebrated that anniversary in December 2021 and before that Galicia did, in April of that year, and the Basque Country and Catalonia, in December 2019, just one year after the 40th birthday of the Constitution.
Institutional acts in Madrid and Castilla y León
While Madrid will meet next week the Governing Council at the Manzanares el Real Castle, where the Statute was signed, and on Friday the 24th it will hold an institutional act at its headquarters in Puerta del Sol, in Castilla y León the anniversary is involved in a rarefied atmosphere and confrontation between the parliamentary groups of the Cortes.
Thus, hardly any commemorative acts will take place, beyond the institutional one that will host the chamber of the regional parliament.
What happened around the proposal to award the Gold Medal of the Cortes, still in the air due to the lack of unanimity in the regional Parliament Board, increases the atmosphere of struggle, with a party like Vox that has one of their representatives at the head of the legislative institution, Carlos Pollán, but who will participate only “out of respect” in this commemoration, while criticizing the state of the autonomies and the very existence of the Statute.
Extremadura and the Balearic Islands prepare for the celebration
Extremadura and the Balearic Islands have been preparing for the commemoration for a long time and other communities continue with theirs, such as Andalusia, where the regional Parliament has just inaugurated the exhibition “40 years of prosperity and self-government in Andalusia”, with photographs from the EFE Agency.
The President of the Junta de Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara; the president of the regional Parliament, Blanca Martín, and the presidents of the councils of Badajoz and Cáceres, Miguel Ángel Gallardo and Carlos Carlos, respectively, signed a general action protocol for the commemoration on December 20.
Its objective is to celebrate the four decades since the approval of the Statute of Autonomy “as an instrument of progress for the autonomous community” and to involve the citizens of Extremadura as “the great protagonist of these 40 years” in this celebration.
To this end, the different institutions that signed the protocol will organize actions on the internet, traveling exhibitions, concerts, school competitions, tourism promotion, sports circuits, debate tables and other cultural activities.
In the Balearic Islands, the Government Council announced months ago its desire to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the Statute of Autonomy and invite the public, other institutions and entities -from Parliament to councils and town halls, through political parties and business and union organizations – to celebrate the anniversary.
In this case, its intention is to “vindicate the importance of self-government embodied in the Statute of Autonomy through institutional declarations, cultural manifestations and civic activities that can be added to the commemorative acts of the Day of the Balearic Islands”.
