Reino De Espana – The Kingdom Of Spain

Mainland Spain covers an area of 500,000 square kilometres and has a coastline of 2,100 kilometres. Spain includes both the Canary and Balearic Islands, administers two small enclaves in Morocco known as Ceuta and Melilla and three island groups near Africa. The British dependency of Gibraltar is situated at Spain’s southern extremity.

It is a big country and the second largest in Europe after France. The interior of Spain is a vast plateau called the Meseta bound to the north-east by the Pyrenees, to the south-west by the Sierra Morena and to the south by the best-known Sierra Nevada. The Meseta is a mountainous area through which many rivers have cut deep valleys and gorges. Much of the coastline is steep and rocky but there is a narrow coastal plain bordering the Mediterranean. The highest point is Pico de Tiede on Tenerife at 3,718 metres above sea level.

Spain’s population of 40 million is lower than many European countries. With 78 people per square kilometre it has one of the lowest population densities in Europe. Despite being 97% Catholic, Spain has a low birth rate of 1.5 children per family with a life expectancy of 75 years for men and 80 years for women. Most Spaniards are now urban rather than rural dwellers. Over a million British now live in Spain concentrated in the capital, Barcelona, the Costas and the Islands.

The principal cities are Madrid, situated in the geographical centre of mainland Spain, being the seat of central government and an important commercial centre, quickly followed by Barcelona, a commercial and industrial city with a large port. There is an intense rivalry between the two cities, both political and sporting. Valencia, the third largest city facing the Mediterranean, is important for car manufacturing and citrus growing. Seville, the fourth largest city located in the south-west, exports agricultural produce such as olive oil, fruit and wine. Bilbao is a major modern port on the north coast.

Spain’s main agricultural products are barley, wheat, sugar beet, vegetables, citrus fruits, wine and olive oil. The largest fishing catches are tuna, sardines, mussels, squid and octopus. Coal and iron ore are mined in Asturias. Manufacturing comprises motor vehicles, machinery, ships and boats, chemicals, steel, textiles and footwear.

Exports consist mainly of cars, machinery, fruit and vegetable produce, iron ore and textiles. Imports consist of fuels and petrol, machinery, electrical equipment, vehicles, chemicals and food products. Spain’s major trading partners are France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA and Portugal.

The economy is changing from a tradition of agriculture to that of a semi-industrial nation, although it still has the largest fishing fleet in Europe, being widely suspected of flouting EU regulations, quotas and net sizes. Ten per cent of the workforce is engaged in tourism with a further ten percent in agriculture and one per cent in fishing. There is a huge, duplicated civil service. Unemployment is around eight per cent.

Spain maintains a well-equipped armed service with women accepted into all branches. The government has close defence ties with the United States which has maintained naval and air bases in the country.

Birth Of A Nation

On 20 November 1975, General Franco died and the Spanish nation was left with the task of restoring democracy in the depths of a worldwide recession. For 38 years all the important decisions had been taken by one man. Until his dying day. Franco had restricted power to those who had refused to countenance change, or accepted the need for change but were only prepared to introduce it slowly and conditionally. If Spain were to change it was clear that much would depend on the role played by the young man who had succeeded Franco.

Two days after his death in 1975, his heir and protégé was crowned – Juan Carlos 1, El Rey de Espana. His first duty was to attend Franco’s state funeral at the Valley of the Fallen, the vast mausoleum hacked from rock which commemorates the dead of the Spanish Civil War and where many are interred. Juan Carlos was not someone in whom Spaniards had much faith. Ever since the age of 10 the young Prince had been projected by the media as a loyal son of the regime, completing his education with distinction and going on to attend all three military academies. He had rarely been seen except in Franco’s shadow, standing behind the old dictator on platforms and podiums at official ceremonies. The overall impression was of a nice enough chap but with not enough intelligence or imagination to question the conventions of his background. Few people can have been misjudged as Juan Carlos, for his rather gauche manner hid a penetrating and receptive mind.

Under the constitutional system devised by Franco, the monarch could only choose his Prime Minister from a list of three names drawn up by the Council of the Realm, a 17-man advisory body consisting almost entirely of Franco diehards. When the King’s new choice eventually became known, the reaction was of stunned disbelief. The man he had chosen was Adolfo Suarez, who at 43 was the youngest member of the outgoing government. Everything about Suarez except his youth seemed to be at variance with the spirit of the times. He had spent his entire working life serving the dictator in a variety of posts. Not surprisingly, he filled his first government with men of his own age whom he had met on his way up through the state system. ‘What a mistake!; What an immense mistake!;’ declared one of Spain’s leading newspapers of the day.

Suarez moved fast. Three months after the swearing-in of his government, he had laid before the Cortes (Spanish parliament) a political reform bill which introduced universal suffrage and a two-chamber parliament, consisting of a lower house, or Congress, and an upper house to be called the Senate. To ease its passage it was made clear to members of the Cortes that the way they voted would affect such matters as who would sit on which committee and whether a blind eye would be turned to certain untaxed accounts. The entire proceedings were broadcast on radio and television and all the deputies were called upon by name to stand up and say either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to reform. One by one the members of the Cortes, generals and admirals, ex-ministers, bankers and local bigwigs stood up and endorsed a measure that would put an end to everything they had spent their lives supporting. Spaniards realised that the long nightmare of Franco had really come to an end.

Further reform measures came thick and fast. The cabinet endorsed a procedure for the legalisation of political parties. The Socialists were legalised first, and then the Communists, the right to strike was recognised and trade unions were legalised. Then the government and opposition parties agreed on how the elections should be conducted and votes counted.

A new constitution was agreed, restoring the identity of ancient kingdoms and regions going back to 1492. The result was a kind of United States of Spain, a tightly regulated country having five levels of government. The top two levels comprised a congress and senate of elected representatives from the provinces, the islands and the regions. Then came 17 autonomous regions, called comunidades, with their own parliaments and governments, with the autonomous regions further divided into provincial and then into the smaller municipios. A new, democratic country was born.

A few years later, after a distinguished term in office, Adolfo Suarez resigned. Only days later Spain faced its greatest challenge, and Juan Carlos his finest hour. In the late afternoon of February 23, 1981, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was about to be installed as Spain’s new Prime Minister when suddenly the doors to the Cortes were flung open to admit Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero and a large force of armed Guardia Civil. The entire Cortes was placed in custody. In Valencia, General Milans de Bosch declared a state of emergency and ordered tanks onto the streets. Spain was again within a hairs breadth of a military coup d’etat.

With all the elected members of Parliament held in the Cortes, only one man stood between Spain and a return to military rule. Had Juan Carlos panicked and fled the capital, it would have been all over for Spain’s democracy. But El Rev was made of sterner stuff. Summoning a television crew to La Zarzuela, his private home, Juan Carlos donned full uniform as Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish forces, and broadcast direct to the nation, ordering all units of the armed forces to take whatever steps were necessary to restore democracy. Spain breathed a great sigh of relief, and within hours the attempted coup was over. This, to some an embarrassingly comic interlude, consigned the generals to oblivion.