The new Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands: “Third Generation”. Differential fact and new electoral system

Abstract

This essay deals with a detailed analysis of the main developments that the new EAcan incorporates (LO 1/2018, of November 5). The new Statute joins the wave of the so-called “third generation” statutes. With them, it shares defining features, but at the same time, it brings novelties of significance in the landscape of Comparative Autonomic Law. Among them, it highlights the European dimension of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, the unique European position as an Outermost Region, the Atlantic dimension and its Special Maritime Space. In addition to the extensive competence development, in the institutional sphere, it includes Law Decrees, the choice of dissolving the Parliament, regional referendum in the Reform procedure, and the mandatory Vice Presidency which seats in a different capital in which the Presidency seats. Until now, it is the only Statute that suppresses statutory immunities. Particular emphasis is put onto the reform of the Canarian Electoral System and the First Transitional Disposition of the Statute, which makes it the most original of the Autonomic Spain: it may combine simultaneously both Insular and Autonomic circumscriptions and constituencies.