Statute of autonomy

Nominally, a statute of autonomy (Spanish: estatuto de autonomía, Catalan: estatut d'autonomia, Galician: estatuto de autonomía, Asturian: estatutu d'autonomía, Basque: autonomia estatutua) 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.

In Spain, the process of devolution after the transition to democracy (1979) created 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities, each having its own Statute of Autonomy. The two autonomous cities are Ceuta and Melilla, both on the north coast of Africa. On 18 June 2006, Catalonia approved by referendum a new but controversial Catalan Statute of Autonomy, enhancing the Spanish territory's degree of autonomy. The original such statute was granted by the Spanish Republic in 1932.^[1]

List of autonomy statutes

#	Name	Adopted	Latest reform
1	Basque Country	18 December 1979 (LO 3/1979)
2	Catalonia	18 December 1979 (LO 4/1979)	19 July 2006 (LO 6/2006)
3	Galicia	6 April 1981 (LO 1/1981)
4	Andalusía	30 December 1981 (LO 6/1981)	19 March 2007 (LO 2/2007)
5	Asturias	30 December 1981 (LO 7/1981)
6	Cantabria	30 December 1981 (LO 8/1981)
7	La Rioja	9 June 1982 [es] (LO 3/1982)
8	Region of Murcia	9 June 1982 [es] (LO 4/1982)
9	Valencian Community	1 July 1982 [es; ca] (LO 5/1982)	10 April 2006 (LO 1/2006)
10	Aragon	10 August 1982 [es; an] (LO 8/1982)	20 April 2007 (LO 5/2007)
11	Castilla-La Mancha	10 August 1982 [es] (LO 9/1982)
12	Canary Islands	10 August 1982 [es] (LO 10/1982)	6 November 2018 (LO 1/2018)
13	Navarre	10 August 1982 [es] (LO 13/1982)
14	Extremadura	25 February 1983 [es; ext] (LO 1/1983)	28 January 2011 (LO 1/2011)
15	Balearic Islands	25 February 1983 (LO 2/1983)	28 February 2007 (LO 1/2007)
16	Community of Madrid	25 February 1983 [es] (LO 3/1983)
17	Castile and León	25 February 1983 [es] (LO 4/1983)
18	Ceuta	13 March 1995 (LO 1/1995)
19	Melilla	13 March 1995 (LO 2/1995)

See also

• Autonomous communities of Spain
• Government of Wales Act 1998
• Nationalities and regions of Spain
• Northern Ireland Act 1998
• Scotland Act 1998

References

1. Force, Marina, "Catalonia's Place in Spain: A Brief History" (subscription required), Wall Street Journal, 11 October 2017. Retrieved 16 October 2017.