Chapter 318

Carlos stayed in Barcelona for two days, and then left Barcelona to inspect other cities.

As the King of Spain, Carlos also has the largest number of palaces in Spain among all nobles. In addition to the largest Ma Deli Palace, Carlos also owns a large number of royal palaces, castles, and manors in various parts of Spain, so there is no need to worry about living problems anywhere.

In Barcelona, Carlos also owns a royal palace that is not very large in scale. Although it is said that the scale is not very large, it is more than enough for the whole royal family to live in.

There are still many buildings similar to the Barcelona Wang Gong in various parts of Spain; these were built by rulers in Spanish history in different eras, and now they have all become Carlos's private property.

How exaggerated is the number of palaces Carlos owns? Just around Ma Deli, without counting the Ma Deli Wang Gong, Carlos still owns 1 temporary palace, 2 castles, and 2 manors.

These more hidden castles and palaces are private residences for royal family members, which can better protect the privacy of royal family members.

Although the scale and luxury of the Ma Deli Wang Gong are unparalleled in Spain, because it is located in the center of Ma Deli, it cannot be guaranteed much in terms of privacy.

Things that happen in the royal palace are easily spread to the whole of Ma Deli, which is unfriendly to royal family members, and some more remote manors and castles have provided more choices for royal family members.

From Barcelona all the way west, Carlos arrived successively at Zaragoza, the capital of the state of Aragon, Pamplona, the capital of the state of Navarre, Oviedo, the capital of the state of Asturias, Santiago, the capital of the state of Galicia, and then took the train through the state of Castile and León, and after staying in its capital Valladolid for half a day, he returned to the capital Ma Deli.

After this round of inspection, Carlos set foot on most of Spain's administrative regions. Except for the overseas Balearic and Canary Islands, as well as the state of Extremadura and the state of Andalusia, all of Spain's administrative divisions were within the scope of Carlos's inspection.

The entire inspection lasted for more than a month, and the results achieved were relatively good. For states with relatively large changes like Barcelona, Navarre, and Asturias, the merger and reorganization plan of the state government had already been completed for the most part.

Among them, the most noteworthy are the governments of the state of Navarre and the state of Asturias.

These two states were merged from two or three major regions, and the state government naturally had to be mixed with the original three regional governments.

Including the state parliaments of these two states, they also had to merge the parliaments of other regions, which is a quite complex task.

The positions of state government officials and the parliamentary seats of the state parliament were all problems that each state had a headache about.

These problems also hindered the progress of the administrative division reform; Carlos personally visited these states and, after dealing with some problems in these states, allowed the political division reform of each state to proceed smoothly.

First of all, it is the state of Navarre, which was merged from three major regions; the formation of the state government and state parliament was the most difficult.

Among the three major regions that make up the state of Navarre, two are regions where Basques gather. According to common sense, most of the officials in the Navarre state government should be Basques, and the state parliament should be the same.

But it is very clear that since the state of Navarre is named Navarre instead of Basque, it naturally represents that the Spanish government does not want the Basques to obtain too many parliamentary seats.

The disputes between local Basques and Spaniards also caused the formation of the Navarre state government and state parliament to fall into a stalemate, and the merger work of the three major regions therefore became quite slow.

After Carlos arrived in Pamplona, the capital of the state of Navarre, he not only personally inquired about the formation of the state government and parliament, but also dealt with some problems in the formation work.

For example, the issue of parliamentary seats. The newly merged state of Navarre will not fully accept the councilors of the original three major regions, but will re-conduct parliamentary elections throughout the state to elect new members of the Navarre state parliament.

As for the government officials of the state of Navarre, they are also mainly the government officials of the original Navarre region. The heads of the Basque region and the La Rioja region temporarily serve as deputy governors of the state of Navarre, waiting for the next gubernatorial election to make relevant position changes.

For the Basques, Carlos's arrangement is definitely a bad news. But the problem is, because Carlos personally sat in command, it was difficult for them to resist Carlos's arrangement.

Carlos's arrangement is not without any reason for targeting the Basques.

The merged state of Navarre has a population of 1.51 million, of which there are less than 700,000 Basques.

The Basques are not even half, so what reason do they have to demand the majority of seats in the parliament? Moreover, the name of the new state is Navarre, and it is also very normal for the state government to be mainly composed of government officials from the original Navarre region.

The original Basque region belongs to the side that was merged, and the officials of the Basque region naturally could not become the main body of the new state of Navarre.

Carlos sat in command in the state of Navarre for the longest time, staying for about a week.

Facts proved that Carlos's personal sitting in command was indeed very effective. When Carlos left the state of Navarre, the formation of the local state government had been successfully completed, and the election work of the state parliament was also in preparation.

It is expected that within the next month, the state parliament of the state of Navarre will re-conduct elections to decide the ownership of the parliamentary seats of the state parliament.

Compared with the state of Navarre, the situation in the state of Asturias is much better.

Although they were all merged from two or more major regions, the situation in the state of Asturias is clearer.

The original Asturias region had a population of 680,000, while the Cantabria region only had a population of 360,000.

Although it is a pity that the Cantabria region was merged, it cannot be denied that the population of the Asturias region accounts for nearly 70% of the population of the new state after the merger, and the state government and state parliament are naturally mainly composed of the regional government and parliament of the original Asturias region.

Coupled with the fact that the people in the Cantabria region still have a strong sense of national belonging, the regional merger work is much smoother than that of Navarre, and there is no need for Carlos to personally sit in command to deal with relevant work.

When Carlos left Navarre for Asturias, the government of the state of Asturias had also been merged, and the relevant work had also entered the final stage.

For the formation of the new state parliament, the state of Asturias adopted the simplest method, which was to directly merge the parliaments of the original two major regions to jointly constitute the first parliament of the state of Asturias.

Such a situation will continue until the next state parliamentary election, and during this period, it will not affect the work of the parliament, which can be said to be a relatively proper solution.

Leaving the state of Asturias, Carlos went to Santiago, the capital of the state of Galicia.

Galicia was not involved in this administrative division reform; if one had to say it, it was just changing the original Galicia region to the state of Galicia.

According to normal circumstances, Carlos did not need to go to Galicia. After all, it was just a renaming work, and each state government could complete it very quickly.

But considering the importance of Galicia, Carlos still chose to personally go to Galicia to inspect and urge the local government to complete the process of changing from a region to a state faster.

As Spain's original fourth most populous, and now fifth most populous administrative region, the importance of Galicia naturally goes without saying.

The reason why Carlos chose to personally go to Galicia is also partly because of the particularity of Galicia compared to other states.

Galicia neither pursues autonomy and independence like the Basques and Catalans, nor is it as stable as other states in Spain.

If one had to say it, Galicia is between the two. Galicians have a certain sense of belonging to Spain, but they also support Galicia in obtaining more autonomy.

Compared to the more radical ways of Catalonia and the Basques, Galicians are obviously more moderate and do not exclude staying in the big family of Spain.

The reason why Galicia had no changes in this administrative division reform was also because Carlos was worried about the reaction of the Galicians.

It is impossible to let Galicia merge with other major regions; this would make Galicia even larger, and Galicians would also pursue a higher status of qualification.

It is also impossible to divide land and population from Galicia; this would cause dissatisfaction among Galicians and make them lean towards the rebellious attitude of Catalonia and the Basques.

Facts also indeed proved that compared to other states in Spain, Galicia's sense of recognition of the country is not that high.

When Carlos arrived in Galicia, the work of changing from a region to a state in Galicia had not yet been completed.

You know, the state of Asturias, which involved land changes, had basically completed the change from a region to a state, not to mention Galicia, where there were no changes in territory and population; renaming should logically be very fast.

Carlos, who arrived in Galicia, immediately discovered something wrong, and then issued his own orders to the Galician government.

Carlos demanded that Galicia must complete the transformation from a region to a state within a week, and rename the regional government and regional parliament.

The powers and functions of the state government and state parliament after renaming have some subtle differences compared to the previous regional government and parliament, and these differences are also what Galicia needs to pay special attention to.

Carlos does not want the state government to have any ultra vires behavior; each state government only needs to obediently listen to the cabinet government and complete their respective development tasks.

This point is also the biggest difference between the regional government and the state government. The autonomy of the regional government is higher, but the state government must abide by and maintain the constitution and act according to the constitution promulgated by the parliament.

Under Carlos's pressure, the Galician government had to speed up the pace of political division reform, and on the fourth day after Carlos arrived in Santiago, it successfully completed the corresponding renaming work.

After the state of Galicia completed the corresponding reforms, Spain's administrative division reform had basically been completed for the most part.

Carlos did not stay too long in Galicia; after all, after the political division reform, there were more important government affairs waiting for Carlos to deal with.

The perspective returns to Ma Deli.

With the promotion of Spain's administrative division reform, the parliament also conducted multiple discussions on the powers of the new state government and state parliament, and added them to the constitutional amendment.

The current Spanish constitution was hastily established after the revolution, and it is inevitable that there are many unreasonable or unaddressed places in it.

In the 16 years since Carlos's coronation, the Spanish parliament has also amended the constitution many times, clarifying the powers of the royal power, the prime minister's power, and the upper and lower houses, allowing Spain's political situation to maintain long-term stability.

After the regions were rebuilt into states, the Spanish parliament was also discussing the division of powers regarding the new administrative divisions, as well as the election process and relevant decrees of each state government.

After Carlos returned to Ma Deli, he also sat in on the parliamentary meetings and roughly clarified the thoughts of some councilors on the power changes of the new state government and state parliament.

Needless to say, the state government, including all members of the state government including the governor, needs to highly listen to the orders of the cabinet government.

Regarding the state parliament, the original method of each state electing state parliamentary councilors and the state parliament electing lower house councilors has not changed at all.

It's just that because the number of Spain's administrative divisions has decreased, the lower house parliamentary seats that each state can elect have also changed to a certain extent.

Such changes are not critical, nothing more than letting some states have more lower house parliamentary seats to elect.

The truly critical change is the second article, which is the reform proposal regarding the election process of the state government.

In Spain's original constitution, the regional governor was elected by the regional parliament, and it was very difficult for the cabinet government and the lower house to intervene.

Although the cabinet government and the lower house also have supervisory power over major regional governments and regional governors, it is also very difficult to remove major regional governors on the premise that the other party does not violate the laws of major regions.

After the regions were changed to states, such a situation had been well alleviated.

The Spanish cabinet government has the power to directly remove the governor, which is also the most direct and effective way for the cabinet government to strengthen the control over each state.

Compared with the cabinet government's power to directly remove the governor, the reform plan proposed by the parliamentary councilors mainly focuses on the election of the governor.

The original election was directly elected by the regional parliament among the councilors, which inevitably made some politicians with short political careers leap to become high-ranking officials like regional governors.

The proposal that the parliament is voting on is also based on this aspect. This proposal did not change the process of the state parliament electing the governor, but only modified the conditions for all state parliamentary councilors to be eligible to run for governor, changing it to a recommended election system.

What does it mean? It means that only those who are recommended are eligible to run for the position of governor; other people, whether they are state parliamentary councilors or lower house councilors, are not eligible to run for the position of governor.

How can one be recommended? Or which institutions have the power to recommend candidates?

According to the parliament's proposal, only two institutions have the power to recommend candidates, and that is the upper and lower houses.

In addition to the gubernatorial candidates recommended by the upper and lower houses, governors of each state whose term has ended will automatically obtain the qualification for recommendation.

Of course, if the governor's performance during his term is poor, he may be disqualified from recommendation by the parliament, and the governor who has been disqualified from recommendation cannot continue to run.

The specific content of this proposal is that when each state elects a governor, the upper and lower houses each recommend one gubernatorial candidate, plus the original governor, a total of three people, to participate in the election of the governor.

Each state parliament votes among these three gubernatorial candidates to elect a new governor; the one with the most votes wins and automatically obtains the position of governor, with a term of five years.

Why do the upper and lower houses recommend gubernatorial candidates? This proposal also has relevant explanations.

There are councilors from each state in the lower house, who naturally understand the situation of each state, which is also the reason why the lower house obtained the qualification for recommendation.

And the upper house has a performance assessment department under its jurisdiction; which officials have good performance and which officials have poor performance can be said to be clear.

It is relatively reasonable for the two houses to jointly recommend gubernatorial candidates for each state; because they have undergone certain inspections and audits during the recommendation, naturally there is no need to worry about those who are not proficient in government affairs walking into high positions like governor because of various accidents.

(End of chapter)