Empire Rising: Spain

It is expected that within the next month, the state assembly of Navarre State will undergo elections again to decide the allocation of assembly seats.

Compared to Navarre State, the situation in Asturias State is much better.

Although both were formed by the merger of two or more regions, the situation in Asturias State is more clear and straightforward.

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

Although the merger of Cantabria Region is somewhat regrettable, it cannot be denied that the population of Asturias Region constitutes nearly 70% of the new state’s population after the merger. Naturally, the state government and state assembly primarily consist of the original Asturias Region’s government and assembly.

In addition, the people of Cantabria Region still have a strong sense of national belonging, making the regional merger work much smoother compared to Navarre, without needing Carlo to personally oversee the related tasks.

When Carlo left Navarre for Asturias, the government of Asturias State had already completed the merger, and the related work was coming to an end.

For the establishment of the new state assembly, Asturias State adopted the simplest approach, which was to directly merge the assemblies of the original two regions to form the first assembly of Asturias State.

This situation will persist until the next state assembly election, without affecting the assembly’s work, and can be considered a fairly proper solution.

Leaving Asturias State, Carlo headed to Santiago, the capital of Galicia State.

Galicia was not involved in this round of administrative division reform; if anything, it was simply the renaming of the original Galicia Region to Galicia State.

Normally, Carlo would not need to visit Galicia. After all, it is just renaming work that the state governments can quickly complete.

However, considering the importance of Galicia, Carlo chose to personally visit Galicia and urged the local government to expedite the transformation process from region to state.

As the former fourth most populous and now fifth most populous administrative division in Spain, the importance of Galicia is self-evident.

One reason Carlo chose to personally visit Galicia is also due to the uniqueness of Galicia compared to other states.

Galicia is neither like Basque nor Catalonia, which pursue autonomy and independence, nor like other states in Spain, which are stable.

If anything, Galicia is in between the two. Galicians have a certain sense of belonging to Spain, but they also support Galicia gaining more autonomy.

Compared to the more radical approach of Catalonia and Basque, Galicians are noticeably more moderate and do not reject staying in the Spanish family.

The reason Galicia did not undergo any changes in this administrative division reform is precisely Carlo’s concern about the Galician people’s reaction.

Merging Galicia with other regions is fundamentally impossible, as it would make Galicia larger, and Galicians would pursue a higher qualifying status.

Dividing land and population from Galicia is also impossible, as it would incite dissatisfaction among Galicians, leading them toward a rebellious attitude similar to Catalonia and Basque.

It is indeed proven that Galicia has a lower sense of national recognition compared to other states in Spain.

When Carlo arrived in Galicia, the reformation process from region to state had not been completed.

It is known that the Asturias State, which involved land changes, had mostly completed the transformation, let alone Galicia, where there were no changes in territory or population. Renaming should have been swift.

Upon arriving in Galicia, Carlo immediately noticed something amiss and promptly issued his orders to the Galician government.

Carlo demanded that Galicia must complete the transition from region to state within a week and rename the regional government and assembly.

After renaming, the state government and assembly have slight differences in authority compared to the previous regional government and assembly, and these differences require special attention from Galicia.

Carlo certainly does not wish for any state government to exceed its authority. State governments simply need to obediently listen to the Cabinet Government and complete their respective development tasks.

This is also the biggest difference between regional government and state government. Regional government has higher autonomy, but state government must abide by and uphold the constitution and act according to the constitution promulgated by the assembly.

Under Carlo’s pressure, the Galician government had no choice but to speed up the political division reform and smoothly completed the renaming work on the fourth day after Carlo’s arrival in Santiago.

After the Galicia State completed the corresponding reform, the administrative division reform in Spain was mostly completed.

Carlo did not stay in Galicia too long, as there were more important political affairs waiting for Carlo to handle after the political division reform.

The focus shifts back to Madrid.

As Spain’s administrative division reform progresses, the parliament has conducted multiple discussions regarding the new state governments and state assemblies’ powers and included them in the constitutional amendment.

The current Spanish constitution was hastily established after the revolution, and inevitably contains many unreasonable or unaddressed parts.