Spain’s Economic Transformation: From Autarky to Autonomy
Economic Development: Regional Governments. The governments of the development era, starting with Franco’s government in 1957 and continuing through the 1960s, marked a significant shift in direction. This period transitioned from an early stage dominated by Falangist principles to one where technocrats held sway. These young economists and technicians, often linked to Opus Dei, were seen as key to economic growth and social stability. Their approach was more technical than ideological, focusing on practical reforms without directly challenging the dictatorship, and finding solutions to the severe economic and social consequences of autarky.
This new economic orientation was driven by:
- The failure of autarky.
- Advocacy from the new technocratic government.
- A commitment to liberalization and opening the economy to the outside world.
This new guidance focused on:
Stabilization Plan of 1959
Goals: To end strong state intervention and remove barriers to trade and financial liberalization.
Methods:
- Stabilization of the economy by reducing inflation and public deficits through measures like freezing wages, raising interest rates, tax reform to increase revenue, and reducing public expenditure.
- Internal and external liberalization of the economy, removing state agencies, auditors, and price regulations, eliminating barriers to foreign goods, facilitating foreign capital investment, and announcing the convertibility of the peseta (an economic policy that sets the value of one currency against a more stable currency, usually the dollar, or another standard like gold).
Development Plans
Objective: To promote economic growth.
This involved indicative economic planning, a model that began in France after World War II, where the State set economic goals and indicated how to reach them, offering economic and tax incentives to employers who followed government guidelines.
Actions: Structural measures intended to overcome shortcomings in the industry (low productivity, small company size) and the creation of Development Poles.
The State of Autonomies
The construction process of the Autonomous State had two distinct stages:
- The first stage involved granting pre-autonomy, a provisional autonomy, to regions whose representatives requested it. Catalonia was the first to receive this in 1977, followed by the Basque Country and Galicia in 1978. The Constitution established the possibility for all regions to become autonomous, each governed by a Statute of Autonomy and endowed with autonomous parliaments and governments.
- The second stage was launched after the Constitution regulated the autonomic system. This involved translating the legal regime through the adoption of Statutes of Autonomy, which contained the powers and institutions of the Autonomous Communities. The first were those of Catalonia and the Basque Country in 1979, followed by Galicia and Andalusia in 1981, and the rest of the Autonomous Communities between 1982 and 1983. Finally, Ceuta and Melilla achieved autonomy in 1995.