In Spain, an autonomous community is the first sub-national level of political and administrative division, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy of the nationalities and regions that make up Spain.
The Parliament of Catalonia is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 members, known as deputies (diputats/deputats/diputados), who are elected for four-year terms or after extraordinary dissolution, chosen by universal suffrage in lists of four constituencies, corresponding to the Catalan provinces. The Parliament building is located in Ciutadella Park, Barcelona.
Spain is a diverse country integrated by contrasting entities with varying economic and social structures, languages, and historical, political and cultural traditions. According to the current Spanish constitution, the Spanish nation is the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards, composed of nationalities and regions which the constitution recognizes and guarantees the right of self-government.
Andalusian nationalism is the nationalism that asserts that Andalusians are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Andalusians. In the past it was considered to be represented primarily by the Andalusian Party. However, the party disbanded in 2015; there are also lesser political organisations that identify with Andalusian nationalism. Some political forces without parliamentary presence like Nación Andaluza and Asamblea Nacional de Andalucía may be found advocating independence. There is also a movement defending the idea that Andalusian is not a dialect of Spanish, but a language of its own.
Nominally, a Statute of Autonomy is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country and, usually, over any other form of legislation. This legislative corpus concedes autonomy (self-government) to a subnational unit, and the articles usually mimic the form of a constitution, establishing the organization of the autonomous government, the electoral rules, the distribution of competences between different levels of governance and other regional-specific provisions, like the protection of cultural or lingual realities.
The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia is a constitutional law defining the region of Catalonia as an autonomous community within the Kingdom of Spain. It was promulgated on 18 September 1979. It is one of seventeen such statutes granted, in various forms and capabilities, to the different autonomous communities of Spain since the Spanish transition to democracy of the 1970s. On 18 June 2006 a referendum altering the statute to expand the authority of the Catalan government was approved; it became effective on 9 August 2006.
The 2006 Catalan regional election was held on Wednesday, 1 November 2006, to elect the 8th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election.
A referendum on the reform of the Andalusian Statute of Autonomy was held in Andalusia on Sunday, 18 February 2007. Voters were asked whether they ratified a statutory amendment which effectively approved a new Statute of Autonomy of Andalusia. The draft Statute had been submitted to the consideration of the Spanish Cortes Generales at the end of the previous year, where it had been approved in both the Congress of Deputies on 2 November 2006 and in the Spanish Senate on 20 December.
The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 provides Catalonia's basic institutional regulations under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. It defines the rights and obligations of the citizens of Catalonia, the political institutions of the Catalan community, their competences and relations with the rest of Spain, and the financing of the Government of Catalonia.
A referendum on the approval of the Basque Statute of Autonomy was held in the Basque Country on Thursday, 25 October 1979. Voters were asked whether they ratified a proposed Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country bill organizing the historical territories of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa into an autonomous community of Spain. The final draft of the bill had been approved by the Basque parliamentary assembly on 29 December 1978, but it required ratification through a binding referendum and its subsequent approval by the Spanish Cortes Generales, as established by Article 151 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
The 2012 Catalan regional election was held on Sunday, 25 November 2012, to elect the 10th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election. It was a snap election, announced on 25 September by President Artur Mas following the pro-independence demonstration in Barcelona on 11 September—the National Day of Catalonia—and the failed talks between President Mas and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to give greater fiscal autonomy to Catalonia.
A referendum on the approval of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy was held in Catalonia on Sunday, 2 August 1931. Voters were asked whether they ratified a proposed draft Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, also known as the "Statute of Núria". Article 12 of the Spanish Constitution of 1931 allowed for Spanish provinces to be organized into "autonomous regions", provided that a regional Statute was proposed by a majority of the provinces' municipalities comprising at least two-thirds of the provincial population and that two-thirds majority of all those eligible to vote accepted the draft Statute.
A referendum on the approval of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy was held in Catalonia on Thursday, 25 October 1979. Voters were asked whether they ratified a proposed Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia bill organizing the provinces of Barcelona, Gerona, Lérida and Tarragona into an autonomous community of Spain. The final draft of the bill had been approved by the Catalan Assembly of Parliamentarians on 29 December 1978, and by the Congress of Deputies on 13 August 1979, but it required ratification through a binding referendum and its subsequent approval by the Spanish Cortes Generales, as established by Article 151 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The referendum was held simultaneously with a similar vote in the Basque Country.
A referendum on the approval of the Galician Statute of Autonomy was held in Galicia on Sunday, 21 December 1980. Voters were asked whether they ratified a proposed Statute of Autonomy of Galicia bill organizing the provinces of La Coruña, Lugo, Orense and Pontevedra into an autonomous community of Spain. The final draft of the bill had been approved following an inter-party agreement on 26 September 1980, but it required ratification through a binding referendum and its subsequent approval by the Spanish Cortes Generales, as established under Article 151 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
The 1980 Catalan regional election was held on Thursday, 20 March 1980, to elect the 1st Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election. This was the first regional election to be held in Catalonia since the Spanish transition to democracy and the second democratic regional election in Catalan history after that of 1932.
A referendum on the initiative of the Andalusian autonomy process was held in Andalusia on Thursday, 28 February 1980. Voters were asked whether they ratified a proposed initiative for the provinces of Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville to organize themselves into an autonomous community of Spain throughout the legal procedure outlined in Article 151 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
A referendum on the approval of the Andalusian Statute of Autonomy was held in Andalusia on Tuesday, 20 October 1981. Voters were asked whether they ratified a proposed Statute of Autonomy of Andalusia bill organizing the provinces of Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville into an autonomous community of Spain. The final draft of the bill had been approved by the Andalusian Assembly of Parliamentarians on 1 March 1981, but it required ratification through a binding referendum and its subsequent approval by the Spanish Cortes Generales, as established under Article 151 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The referendum was held simultaneously with a regional election in Galicia.
The next Catalan regional election will be held no later than Monday, 31 March 2025, to elect the 14th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament will be up for election.
In Spain, a president of an Autonomous Community serves as the chief executive officer in each of the seventeen Autonomous communities and in the two Autonomous cities, where they receive the name of "Mayor-Presidents". As such, regional presidents are responsible for implementing regional laws and overseeing the operation of the state executive branch. As regional leaders, governors advance and pursue new and revised policies and programs using a variety of tools, among them executive laws, executive budgets, and legislative proposals.
José Antonio González i Casanova was a Spanish lawyer, politician, constitutional law academic, and writer, known for being one of the drafters of the Constitution of Spain in 1978.
