State of the autonomies: equality is the key

After the first meeting held a few weeks ago, which inaugurated a series of conferences on the State of the Autonomous Communities, the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation was the setting for the second session, which dealt with the competences shared between the State and the Autonomies. This second day was moderated by Ignacio Astarloa, a member of the Royal Academy, Legal Counsel to the Spanish Parliament and former lecturer in Law at Comillas ICADE, who gave the floor to several experts who shed light on a subject that is always topical.

Isabel Álvarez Vélez, lecturer in Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law (Comillas ICADE), dissected the challenges currently facing the distribution of powers in our autonomous State through two paradigmatic examples: the referendum and the right to education. The lecturer stressed the importance of developing a balanced distribution of competences that guarantees the principle of equality between all the Autonomies and, therefore, with the State itself.

For his part, Rafael Gómez-Ferrer Morant, member of the Royal Academy, former judge of the Constitutional Court and lecturer in Administrative Law at the Universidad Complutense, analysed the current situation of the principles underpinning the distribution of powers: the dispositive principle, solidarity, the necessary balance between equality and asymmetry, and the need to establish limits to the system that ensure the State and respect the questions that were already established in the constituent process.

This series of conferences and round tables on the autonomous State is organised by the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation, together with the Comillas-ICAI Foundation and Comillas Pontifical University.