State and Regional Administrative Coordination in Spain
not these proposals agreed with their own ideas or the interests of their regions . ( Interview 9 )
Interaction Between Ministers and Regional Representatives
In terms of the workings of the Sectoral Conferences , perhaps the sphere where the importance of political party is clearest is in the relations of the different administrative levels or , to put it another way , in the interaction between regional representatives and the central administration . In this regard , the extent of the party conformity of participants in a body designed for inter-authority cooperation is striking . For example , when preparing Sectoral Conference sessions , it often happened that regional representatives belonging to a single party held prior meetings in order to establish common positions . Obviously , in these situations , political-ideological and electoral criteria take priority when deciding on discourses and strategies .
They would bring together all the Socialist regional ministers … the Popular Party did the same with people from that party … so discussion blocks were pre-established , a thing that was not very healthy because many of these matters should not have such a political character and should involve technical discussion , but it was politicised … Party discipline won out over conversations that should have been more and more technical in nature . ( Interview 14 )
Before the Sectoral Conference meeting there was a discussion that was not only technical , but also political . The ministry wanted its proposals to get the go-ahead , and so it notified the Autonomous Regions beforehand , particularly (…) those Autonomous Regions of the same party , in order to have the support of the commissions , of the conferences , of the regional government
departments themselves . ( Interview 11 )
This way of working was taken even further at the Education Sectoral Conference meetings of January 27 and February 25 , 2010 , during the last Socialist legislature . At these meetings the regional ministers belonging to the PP established not only a common position , but also a spokesperson , respectively the Valencian and Galician representatives . However , the high point of this party allegiance of Sectoral Conference participants had happened previously , on June 2 , 2005 , also at the Education Sectoral Conference . This was when the Organic Law on Education , proposed by the Socialist central government , was discussed : the regional PP representatives left the meeting halfway through in order to express their disagreement with the documentation sent .
Furthermore , the partisan factor is clearly visible if we analyze the responses that take a critical viewpoint given by representatives of the Autonomous Regions . Tables 4 and 5 show agenda items from the Education and Environment SCs during the period analyzed , on which the different Autonomous Regions intervened . Specifically , we calculated not the total number of interventions by the regional representatives , which would be much greater , but the number of agenda items which register at least one intervention by them . Furthermore , we registered as “ critical ” those interventions on agenda items which demonstrate an open criticism of the intentions of the proposing agent — almost always , as has been noted , the ministry — whether over procedural matters or because of the content of the intervention .
As can be seen here , there are more and less active Autonomous Regions :
107