Phasing Out?

A change was imminent at the other end of the European ideological map. Last week Madrid buzzed with the ru mor that Francisco Franco was about to give his nation a new constitution at last. This week Franco will call an extraordinary session of the Cortes which, later this month, will accept a new "institutional law" and put it to the people in a referendum before year's end.

The new constitution is expected to create a Prime Minister, enlarge the functions of the Council of the Realm (heretofore purely decorative), grant wider representation to the Cortes and --most important--limit the power of the head of state in the transition period to a return to constitutional monarchy. Said one Hispanologist: "The old laws were made to give Franco the means to govern. This one gives him the way to phase out."

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