The theory and practice of Inter-Territorial Compensation Fund

Abstract

Not all the theories that deal with the problem of the growth of inequalities as between different national regions go on to recommend the use of regional development funds as a panacea for such inhalances, only those that apriori see the open market as being incapable of righting such phenomen a being given to recommending this sort of corrective action. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 would seem to have lent its ear to the council of the latter school when creating the Inter-Territorial Compensation Fund. The author, in a somewhat critical tone, tells of the highways and bye-ways wandered by the notions behind the setting up of this fund within the Constitution itself from its early days on through the law that governs its workings, then through the LOCFA and on to the cross-roads of the Autonomic Goverment Agreements of the summer of 1981. Many of the fine hopes that the passing of the Inter-Territorial Compensation Fund legislation gave rise to have withered on the stem, some because the original purpose of it has lost its point, some because of its not being used to favour those backward regions that most needed its assistance, some because of its being used to do little more than patch and mend the holes in the budgeting of the Autonomic Communities. The author concludes by saying that for all its inadequacies, the Fund is still a necessity and, as such, must be kept in being.