Dr. Ángel Ignacio Villaverde, the holder of the Constitutional Law Chair at the Universidad de Oviedo, visited the UIC on Friday, 26 April 2013, to give the lecture «Equality in Diversity: The State of Autonomous Communities, National Unity, Regional Diversity and Equal Rights».
During his talk, Villaverde highlighted the paradox at the heart of Spain’s autonomous community system, in which diversity and plurality are essential to govern the different autonomous communities as a single nation, given that each region has different competencies devolved from the central government.
As part of his explanation, the speaker sought to contextualize the issue by taking a brief historical detour and exploring the federal system in the United States. The paradox of the U.S. federal model, he claimed, is that the constituent states are not identical, which is why each state’s individual weight is the sum of many different factors. With this in mind, Villaverde said, "The Spanish state is a federal state".
Villaverde subsequently moved on to an in-depth discussion of the Spanish Constitution, which, he argued, ensures unity across the nation by including two key features: devolved competences and the basic statute governing citizenship. Villaverde noted that this statute cannot vary depending on geographical location, as it is principally concerned with fundamental rights.
According to Villaverde, each autonomous community balances diversity with unity. This unity stems from the fundamental rights, which are identical throughout the country and therefore cannot be modified by the statutes of each autonomous community. Villaverde concluded by pointing out that the diversity provided for in the Spanish Constitution makes the country an example of asymmetrical federalism.
