La cooperación intergubernamental en el Estado autonómico: situación y perspectivas

As proclaimed by the Spanish Constitutional Court at an early stage, the existence of cooperative relations is inherent to the State of Autonomies, yet cooperation among the various regional authorities has been scarce in Spain, both qualitatively and quantitatively. For a long time, intergovernmental relations hinged on cooperative sectoral mechanisms formalized either by law or statute, the most important cooperative instruments being Sectoral Conferences and bilateral cooperation agreements at a vertical level, and cooperation agreements between the Autonomous Communities at a horizontal level. However, concurring with the last statutory reforms, new cooperation mechanisms of a general nature have been introduced in the Spanish political praxis, such as the Conference of Presidents and the Conference of Autonomous-Community Governments. This paper focuses on the various instruments which have been institutionalised to comply with the principle of intergovernmental cooperation. It analyses the results obtained so far and identifies the problems which need to be addressed for said instruments to consolidate and contribute to a more coherent and efficient functioning of the State of Autonomies.