Reflecting and Building Asymmetries: The Role of (Sub-) Constitutional Statutes in Spain and the UK

The Spanish and the UK constitutional orders are asymmetrical as to the level of autonomy that the various regional governments enjoy but also as to the kind of relationship each and every one of them develops with the metropolitan State. The paper provides for a comparative analysis of the role that the (sub-)constitutional statutes play in Spain and the UK in reflecting political asymmetries and creating constitutional ones. It argues that the processes that led to the drafting of the relevant documents have taken into account those very different political aspirations that certain ethnic and political communities had in those countries. At the same time, the distribution of competences between the various tiers as regulated by those statutes has translated the de facto political asymmetries into de jure constitutional asymmetries.