Communities of chartered regime

rdf:langString Communities of chartered regime

rdf:langString The constitution of Spain of 1978 allowed for the nationalities and regions that make up the Spanish nation to accede to self-government and be constituted as autonomous communities, which became the first-order political and territorial division of the Spanish territory. Both the process whereby the nationalities and regions were to accede to self-government and the scope of competences that were to be devolved or transferred from the central government, were intended to be asymmetrical in nature. One of the main differences was established in the first additional provision of the constitution, after much debate in the Spanish Parliament acting as a Constituent Assembly. This provision established a protection and respect for the historical rights of the territories that had fueros, "charters", "privileges" or "jurisdictions", which were to be "updated" within the framework of the constitution. These territories were Álava, Gipuzkoa, Biscay and Navarre. The first three joined to form the autonomous community of the Basque Country, whereas Navarre was constituted itself as the Chartered Community of Navarre. The charters that were recognized and updated granted them specific powers not recognized in other autonomous communities, most notably, fiscal autonomy which is the power to manage their own revenue and expenditure. As such, these two autonomous communities are known as communities of chartered regime (Spanish: comunidades de régimen foral) or more simply chartered communities whereas the autonomous communities without fiscal autonomy, became known as .