resume of spanish periods (clase de cultura)

Spanish’s transition to democracy was a successful transition. What were the elements that made it so successful? In less than a hundred years, Spanish history has experienced a variety of social and political events such as: two monarchic dynasties, two republics, two dictatorships, (one of which lasted almost four decades) and one of the bloodiest civil wars (The collapse of the Second Republic, 1939) in Europe. What it makes this transition more remarkable is that the institutional mechanisms designed to preserve Franco’s authoritarian system made it possible to legislate a democratic constitutional monarchy into reality nowadays.
The aim of this work is to recall the general circumstances of a political and economic transition that conditioned in a very specific way the leading actors and the results of their actions. In my view there were three significant key elements for the success of such transition to democracy in Spain in the following order:
• The role of the Spanish Monarchy. Post-Franco period in 1976-1977 and the role of King Juan Carlos de Borbón and Adolfo Suárez González
• Internal Facts. The Moncloa Pacts in 1977 and the rise to power of the PSOE in 1982 with Felipe González
• The accession of Spain in the EC in 1986. After the Enlargement and Spain’s application to join the European Community. I will focus on this matter mostly.

The Post Franco Period, an Overview
After Franco’s death, Spain was living difficult and uncertain months. Although, not for long as a surprise was coming ahead. When Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón took the oath as King of Spain on November 22, 1975, no one anticipated that he would be one of the engineers of such an impressive democratic transition. The reason of this was mainly because Franco had hand-picked Juan Carlos and moreover Francisco Franco himself supervised Juan Carlos’s education. Then the surprise was even greater as for some political observers have pointed out Juan Carlos as Juan the brief, characterized for his athletic talents rather than his political beliefs.
An important decision taken by the King of Spain was the appointment of Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez as a Prime Minister. Adolfo Suarez worked under Franco’s regime as a secretary general of the National Movement in the first government of the monarchy.