Mancomunitat de Catalunya

The Mancomunitat de Catalunya was an institution that grouped the four Catalan 'diputacions', (or province administrations) created the 6 April of 1914, while the process for its creation futile starts to the 1911.

The Spanish Parliament approved it with very much cutted competences, however the senate never did it.

In 18 December of 1913 the king signed the law granting the right of provincial associations.

It was formed by the federation of the four Catalan regional governments, in a long historical demand of Catalans. Even though it had to have purely administrative functions, and its competences did not go beyond those of the provincial regional governments, it acquired a great political importance: it represented the first recognition on the part of the Spanish state of the personality and of the unit of Catalonia from the year 1714.

Its first President was Enric Prat de la Riba and afterwards the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, both of the Lliga Regionalista , and carried out an important task of infrastructures creation of ways and ports, hydraulic works , railways, telephones, charity and health. Also it undertook initiatives for increasing the agricultural and forest yields introducing technological improvements, of services and educational and promoted the technological education necessary for the Catalan industry.

It created and consolidated a set of cultural and scientific institutions in order to give greater prestige to the language and the Catalan culture, like the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies), the Biblioteca de Catalunya (Library of Catalonia), the Escola Industrial (Industrial School), the Escola Superior de Belles Arts (Superior School of Fine Arts), the Escola Superior de Belles Arts (Superior School of High Commercial Studies) or the Escola del Treball (School of the Work). Prat de la Riba also created, the Escola de l'Administració Local (School of Local Administration), from where a body of Catalan civil servants had to appear.

Another important milestone of the Mancomunitat was the promotion of the work of Pompeu Fabra, who normalized the Catalan language.

See also

• Generalitat de Catalunya
• List of Presidents of Catalonia
• Catalan Government Composition