ABSTRACT
Along with the regional political systems, the autonomy process has created 17 regional party systems which are more and more intertwined with the national and regional party system. The regional political systems of the autonomous communities had no model of a political system apart from the national one. The disputes between regional governments and the central government over powers declined completely in the 1990s. The regional governments are much smaller than the national one, although some of them have grown substantially. Parliamentarianism at regional level is quite limited by the powers assigned to regional parliaments by the national political system, though nevertheless the regional legislative bodies play a role in designing and shaping the new regional political systems. The legislative activity of the new regional parliaments can be divided into two phases. Political stability has so far been one of the criteria for the limitation of the instruments of control available to the opposition.
