THE MONARCHY IN SPAIN: DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT OR ESSENTIAL PIECE OF THE 1978 REGIME?

Abstract

A widespread idea among monarchist authors, which we do not share, is that the Crown is an essential part of the constitutional pact of 1978, so that a change in the form of the Head of state would not merely reform the Constitution, but rather would destroy it, prompting a new constituent process of unpredictable consequences. We disagree with that position since, in our opinion, reforming the 1978 Constitution to convert Spain into a parliamentary republic would not mean liquidating the political regime born with it, but rather would reinforce it while likewise accentuating its democratic character. It would merely change a symbolic aspect, deepening democracy without subverting the existing constitutional order. The proclamation of the Third Republic that we propose would not abolish the regime that emerged with the 1978 Constitution but would simply finish a process that the transition was incapable of addressing. Thus, our republicanism is in no way related to the noisy revisionist projects of the transition and our proposal cannot at all be called anti-system.