"The Town Councils have been schools of democracy, of coexistence, of respect for plurality and today they are institutions highly valued by citizens, who receive a great deal of trust, one of the bases on which a full democracy like ours is based.”. This is how His Majesty King Felipe VI summarised the role of local governments this morning during his speech at the commemorative event of the fortieth anniversary of the first democratic municipal elections after the dictatorship, an event held at the FEMP headquarters in which the Monarch also highlighted the fundamental role that local governments have played in the structuring of the country, in the social support provided throughout the crisis and, ultimately, “in the development of the Spain we live in”.The City Councils, the King stressed, "are essential to address the main challenges of our immediate future."".
In his speech, he encouraged local leaders to continue working with the same rigor, since, he said, “the successful future of Spain depends largely on the daily work of its municipalities” and he advocated “thinking globally and acting locally, having a global vision and local sensitivity.”
The event was attended by Joaquín Hernández and Manuel Pato, president and general secretary of FMRM.
The President of the FEMP, Abel Caballero, thanked the Monarch for his presence and support, and insisted that now, in the 21st century, “the local takes on the size of the total”, because it is in municipalities and cities where “the resolution of demands, the search for new commitments” and, above all, the space of modernity, of the future, of participation, “of a new era of quality of life on our horizon. From optimism in transformation and the realism of the pragmatic” can be found.
Over the forty years since that 3rd of April 1979, “Mayors have responded to the trust that people placed in us, transforming municipalities, making municipal affairs a great legitimation of politics”, Abel Caballero stressed, who also recalled that during this time “nothing escaped our attention, whether or not it was within our competence. We made local politics total politics”.
And for this reason, he stressed, "it is necessary that the rules be adapted to recognise the new times and new realities, that the laws recognise the capacity of the Town Councils that the citizens and the efficiency of what is close to them indicate", and he insisted on the need for a new decentralisation, a new distribution of public action, with new powers and new financing for the Town Councils".
