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The Autonomous
region of Castile and León, with an
extension of 94.224 Km2, happens for being the most
extensive, not only of the national territory, but of the set
of the European Union, overcoming in surface seven of
fifteen member states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Holland, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal). It represents 18,6 for
100 of the national territory and 2,9 for 100 of the
community space (I square 1). Integrated by nine provinces (Avila,
Burgos, León, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria,
Valladolid and Zamora), the Castilian and from Leon Community occupies the
north half of the Plateau, being delimited by the
Cantabrian Mountain range, to the north; the Mounts of León,
to the northwest; the Central Mountain range, on the south; and the
Iberian Mountain range, to this one. It does not possess on the west any
natural limit, being the border with Portugal the one that
delimits it. Although there do not exist geographical accidents that
have provoked the lack of comunication with the
nearby country, the proper border has taken charge doing it and the
river Duero, which constitutes the axis vertebrador of this
Community and a natural exit towards the Atlantic Ocean, has
not realized this one committed, finding Castile and León his
exit to the sea for the north.
As consequence of
this geographical location, 67 for 100 of the
territory
thousand is placed in altitudes superior to 500 meters and 31,6 for 100 over, being
located the average altitude of the region concerning 800 meters.
This fact joined the extreme hardness of his
climatological conditions, influences negatively his
agricultural activity.
In
Spain of the European Commission the 3rd
Edition of the work publishes the Representation " The
Spanish Autonomous regions in the European Union " that it is known of twenty
fascicles, one for each of 17 Autonomous
regions, more Ceuta, Melilla and, finally,
the introductory one that it includes the whole Spain.
The approach that has followed,
as in previous editions, is the regional one emphasizing
the structural actions carried out in every
region across the Structural Funds, the
Fund of Cohesion and the community initiatives.
Different examples of performances are included in those who have
translated to themselves the community interventions as well as an
evaluation of the impact of the structural actions across
his contribution to the
economic growth and to the process of real convergence.
The fact that this
publication examines the impact of the
structural actions on the regions he must not make to forget that the
target chased in the different Agreements is that of the
economic and social cohesion,
indicating to him expressly that all the
political community ones owe coadyuvar to obtaining such
a target. For it and still bearing in mind that the
structural actions will represent in 1999 35 % of the
community budget it is not necessary to lose of sight the impact that
political others, especially the PAC, will have on
the cohesion.
The advance of the
European Union is made clear considering three
facts. The coming into effect of a new Agreement, that of Amsterdam;
the coming into effect from January 1, 1999 of a
common currency, the euro, in eleven countries; and the existence of
the only market.
Nevertheless, all
this must not make to forget the challenges which the
Union faces and to which the European Commission tries to
give response in his document Agenda 2000. Such challenges are summed up in
the neceidad of improving the political ones of the Union,
helping to the countries candidates for prepare the
possible best thing for him before his adherence and finally the
establishment of a new financial frame. The proposals of the
Commission contemplated in the Agenda 2000 will
give place to decisions that will be taken by the Advice and the
European Parliament. His application will
reverberate positively in the economic and social cohesion of
the integral countries of the Union.
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1.
The average population density of
the region was coding, in the year 1996, in 26,7
hab/km2, fact that contrasts with the average national thickness
(78,3 hab/km2) and that of the European Union (116,8 hab/km2),
registering next to the half of the territory of Castile and
León low thresholds to 10 hab/km2. Although the
evolution of this variable differs between provinces, if
we attend on the information published by the National Institute of
Statistics in the respective Censuses of
Population (I square 1), in the set of the region
the situation has not been modified practically
from the beginning of century, which is indicative of the
demographic slope that endures this Autonomous region,
which has not taken into account the waves of population growth
registered in our country. Approximately, 98 for
100 of the municipalities of Castile and León he has suffered a
decrease in his demographic census from 1960, which
justifies the reduction experienced by the thickness
up to critical ends.
I square 1
2.
The
territorial distribution of the population can be characterized by his
concentration in the provinces of Burgos, León,
Salamanca and Valladolid, that agglutinate 68,5 for 100 of the
regional whole (I square 2). In the opposite end, one finds the
province of Soria, which, only, represents 3,7
for 100. The low thickness comes up of his population and the
unequal distribution of this one in the set of
the establishments, concentrated on not very numerous city
centres, denounces the configuration of a territory
marcadamente jerarquizado.
I square 2
3. Castile and León has happened of
having a population of 2.623.196 inhabitants, in the census
of 1970, to 2.562.892, in that of 1991, which supposes an
entire loss of effective 60.304. This fact has
translated to itself in a minor representation of the
population Spanish and from Leon on the national whole,
on having happened of 7,7 for 100, in 1970, to 6,5 for 100, in 1991.
Before this situation, we are in conditions to
affirm that the Community of Castile and León constitutes a good
example of demographic retrogression, provoked,
fundamentally, by the migratory process that has suffered this
region.
4. The migratory movements suppose the
factor of demographic change that more has
determined both the size and the proper structure
for ages of the population of Castile and León throughout
all this century and, especially, from the
second half. In all the provinces of the region, without
exception, interior displacements
of population have taken place from the rural zones to the capitals
(rural exodus) and, equally, from a
few provincial capitals to others, all this combined with a strong
migratory movement extrarregional. This way, during the
years that pass between 1960 and 1970, the
migratory balance rose up to-466.236 persons, and between 1976 and
1981, the region showed a migratory
negative average balance of effective 25.000, number that raised to
more than 36.000 in the period 1986-1991, owed, to
a great extent, to the phase of economic recovery
that experiences Spain during the second half of the
decade of the eighties. Considering the selective character
of the migratory processes, the loss of effective
has concentrated, fundamentally, on those
more dynamic population strata, which has generated
certain imbalances so much in the structure for ages,
hastening the process of aging of the
regional population, as in the
demographic spatial distribution, on having created to him wide zones
depopulated in the rural ambience. In general, it can
be accepted that the disappearance of population in a
concrete area the condemnation to death. So that this does
not happen in the zones of Castile and León that they show a
worrying progressive tendency towards his depopulation,
the society and the different classes of the
Administration will have to arrange certain
measurements that modify the course of the events. Of not
being like that, the depopulation and the
economic impoverishment of these areas will
turn out to be inevitable.
5. It has been the rural exodus the one that has
caused the depopulation of the Autonomous
region, since from the rural world it comes
more of 80 for 100 of the whole migratory
registered contingent. This concept must differ from that of
desertification that, sometimes, has been an employee
to refer to the areas of mountain in which the
abandonment of grounds has given place to the return to an
ecological balance injured by the action of the man.
This process of depopulation has been unequal being
able to distinguish three zones differentiated in the region:
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© 2001-2002 Juan José Fernández Gutiérrez
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