Abstract
This chapter reflects on the position of local governments in the Spanish political system and on their autonomy, its evolution, patterns, strengths, and weaknesses. It first defines the context of the emergence of autonomous local governments in the democratic transition of the late 1970’s and describes their evolution through the successive legal reforms of the Local Government Act together with their implications. Measured by the Local Autonomy Index, Spain offers a case of medium levels of autonomy from a European perspective, with relatively high levels of organizational and legal autonomy but weak points when it comes to the functions and competences that municipalities can exert. And there are still some issues to be tackled in order to fully comply with the obligations of the European Charter of Local Self-Government as the last report issued by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe has remarked.
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Navarro, C., Pano, E. (2022). Local Autonomy in Spain: The Place of Spanish Municipalities in the Multilevel System of Government. In: Alonso, Á.I. (eds) Local Governance in Spain. Local and Urban Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14804-0_11
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