Vegueria

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A vegueria ( Catalan [ bəɣəˈɾi.ə ], pl. Vegueries) was a territorial subdivision in medieval Catalonia under the jurisdiction of a veguer (vulgar Latin vigerius from Latin vicarius ). It is comparable to the German bailiwick .

According to the Catalan Statute of Autonomy of 2006 and the Catalan regional law Llei 30/2010, del 3 d'Agost, de vegueries of August 3, 2010, seven vegueries are to replace the previous four provinces as a new subdivision of the Catalan territory .

history

The origins of the vegueries lie in the bailiwicks created in the Catalan counties by Charlemagne from 802 . After the merger of the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragón to form the Crown of Aragon in 1164, special royal veguers were appointed to administer and exercise jurisdiction over the rural population in the counties.

As the royal influence grew, the number of vegueries in the counties increased. In 1304 there were 19 vegueries in what is now Catalonia , which were subordinate to the King of Aragon:

They were based on the boundaries of the old counties. At the same time, five more vegueries in Mallorca and Northern Catalonia were subordinate to the King of Mallorca .

The subdivision into vegueries formed the basis for the administration and existed with some adjustments until the dissolution in 1716 by the decrees of the Nueva Planta . In northern Catalonia this happened in 1790 as a result of the French Revolution .

For the administrative subdivision of the territory, twelve corregimentos were created in what is now Catalonia , each subordinate to a military governor. The borders of the corregimentos also largely corresponded to social realities. In contrast, the creation of the four Spanish provinces in Catalonia in 1833 no longer paid any attention to the requirements of a dynamic and complex society. Following the example of the French departments, the Spanish territory was only divided into administrative units of roughly the same size as the central state.

In 1936 the Republican Generalitat divided Catalonia into 38 comarques and 9 vegueries with the aim of dissolving the provinces from 1833. The subdivision, which came into force on December 1, 1937, only existed until the end of the civil war .

The vegueries today

In Roca report from 2001 suggested Vegueries

In the first Catalan Statute of Autonomy after the transition to democracy in 1979, vegueries were not yet mentioned. It remained with the division into the four provinces.

In 1987, a regional law in Catalonia set up 41 comarques as associations of municipalities. In terms of size, the Comarques are comparable to counties in Germany. The demarcation of the Comarques did not always coincide with the territorial status of the provinces, rather some of the Comarques comprised communities from different provinces.

At the end of the 1990s, a group of experts headed by Miquel Roca had already developed a new proposal for the administrative structure. The Roca report presented in 2001 provided for the creation of six to eight additional comarques, as well as a breakdown into six vegueries and one sub- vegueria : Vegueria de Barcelona , based in Barcelona , Vegueria del Camp de Tarragona , based in Tarragona and special consideration von Reus , Vegueria de la Catalunya Central , based in Manresa and with particular attention to Vic and Igualada , Vegueria de Girona , based in Girona , Vegueria de Ponent , based in Lleida and the sub- Vegueria Alt Pirineu and Val d'Aran and Vegueria de les Terres de l'Ebre based in Tortosa .

There were local efforts to create more vegueries : Vegueria de l'Alt Ter with the comarques Osona and Ripollès and Vegueria del Penedès with the comarques Alt Penedès , Anoia , Baix Penedès and Garraf . In addition, the Council of Val d'Aran ( Conselh Generau d'Aran ) demands that the current Comarca Val d'Aran not be connected to any other administrative unit. The Roca report has therefore not been fully implemented.

The new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia from 2006 provides for the establishment of vegueries , which have a dual nature: On the one hand, they should be supra-municipal authorities (and thus an independent legal entity under public law ) of local self-government and, on the other hand, as administrative districts, the lower level of the administration of the autonomous people Form the Community of Catalonia (Art. 90 of the Statute of Autonomy). In the first function, they are to take the place of the previous four provinces.

Division of Catalonia into 4 provinces (outlined in red) and the future vegueries (surface colors ) with the comarques

These provisions of the Statute of Autonomy were implemented by the regional law Llei 30/2010, del 3 d'Agost, de vegueries of August 3, 2010. This provides for the formation of the following vegueries :

It is territorially identical to the Comarques community Alt Pirineu i Aran .

It is territorially identical to the Comarques community Àmbit Metropolità de Barcelona .

  • La Catalunya Central , made up of the municipalities of the Comarques L'Anoia , El Bages , El Berguedà , Osona and El Solsonès . This Vegueria thus includes the northern part of today's province of Barcelona, ​​as well as the Comarca El Solsosonès, the municipality of Gósol (both currently part of the province of Lleida) and the municipalities of Vidrà and Viladrau (both currently part of the province of Girona).

It is territorially identical to the Comarques Centrals .

  • Girona , consisting of the municipalities of the Comarques L'Alt Empordà , El Baix Empordà , La Garrotxa , El Gironès , El Pla de l'Estany , El Ripollès and La Selva . This Vegueria essentially corresponds to the territorial status of today's province of Girona, with the following exceptions: it receives the municipality of Fogars de la Selva (currently part of the province of Barcelona) as part of the comarca La Selva, while the municipalities of Vidrà and Viladrau, which currently belong to the province of Girona as part of the Comarca Osona to the Vegueria La Catalunya Central and the eastern part of the Cerdanya to the Vegueria L'Alt Pirineu.

They are territorially identical to the Comarques Gironines .

It is territorially identical to the Comarques community of Ponent .

It is territorially identical to the Comarques community of Camp de Tarragona .

It is territorially identical to the Comarques community Terres de l'Ebre .

The new structure in vegueries thus differs from the previous provincial borders. Since a change in the provincial borders according to the Spanish constitution can only be made by an organic law of the Cortes Generales , i.e. the Spanish parliament in Madrid, the Catalan regional law of August 3, 2010 in its "first transitional provision " ( disposición transitoria primera ) originally provided the following Transitional regulation before: After the local elections on May 22, 2011, the previous four provinces should initially be retained in their territorial status, but from then on bear the name Vegueria . Their previous self-governing bodies, the Diputaciones , should be renamed Consells de Vegueria . Only when the legislative changes necessary for the reorganization have taken place on the whole of Spain should the reorganization into the seven vegueries provided for in the regional law take place.

However, on June 1, 2011, the law was changed. Since, according to the transitional provision that has been in effect up to now, the Diputaciones would only have been renamed Consells de Vegueria without any further legal consequences, the vegueries should now only be constituted as self-governing bodies when the laws necessary for the reorganization have been passed at the state level. Therefore, the division into four provinces remains for the time being.

The Val d'Aran, which has a special status, will initially belong to the Vegueria L'Alt Pirineu and only later be completely removed from this subdivision level (which, however, also requires changes to the law at the Spanish level).

According to Art. 141 of the Spanish Constitution, the previous provinces also have a dual nature: on the one hand as supra-communal territorial bodies of local self-government and on the other hand as administrative districts of the lower level of state administration. They also form the constituencies for elections to the Cortes Generales in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution . The regional law of August 3, 2010 expressly provides that their function as administrative districts of the state administration and constituencies are not affected by this law.

There are therefore several possibilities for further development, which depend on how the whole Spanish legislature behaves:

  • If and as long as he does not adapt the state laws, the current status of the division into four provinces will remain.
  • If he adjusts the boundaries of the provinces to those of the planned vegueries by means of an organic law, a reorganization takes place, whereby it is up to him whether he extends this reorganization to the function of the provinces as administrative districts of the state administration and as constituencies for the elections to the Cortes Generales .

In their dual nature, the vegueries resemble the German rural districts , which are also self-governing bodies and form the lower level of the state administration (e.g. "district administration as lower water authority"). However, there is the difference that in the case of the districts, both functions are organizationally combined in the district administration, while this is not the case with the vegueries : On the one hand there is the Consell de Vegueria with its administration as a self-governing body and the lower authority organizationally separated from it the administration of the Autonomous Community ( Delegació Territorial ), both of which only have jurisdiction over the same geographical area.

See also

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