Without reservation I begin by making a public confession: writing this year about the Constitution and its necessary reform makes me bored. And perhaps that could be the degree scroll of this opinion article , but replacing it with the Latin expression from which it derives: fastidium. In part, because in times of crisis, whatever the field it affects, it is advisable to return to the roots. Let it remain as a note and return to the historical review on its own. Beyond the effervescence of the moment and the social anger unleashed by the two "Cs" combined -corruption and crisis- we should not lose the perspective of the people: where we come from and how we are.

And in this perspective, in my opinion, the 1978 Constitution has been a political instrument that, first, brought together a fragmented people and was a symbol of harmony that has allowed coexistence for more than three decades. But, since the Constitution is a legal text and not an entity with a life of its own, it is not appropriate in any case to eulogize it, which sometimes is the worst insult depending on who is doing it. And perhaps we are given to oscillate between the former and diatribe, towards which today the populist winds are blowing more. But, let us remember that, leaving aside the emotional, the Constitution is a rule aimed at limiting power, organizing it, submitting it, with the ultimate aim of guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of citizens. And so, trying to give objectivity to topic, the 78 Constitution has allowed the organization of a model of social and political coexistence with many more lights than shadows, advancing in the realization of rights and freedoms of the people to heights unknown in our history and configuring an advanced social and democratic State of Law. In its organic part, the rule designs a model of organization of power that has worked reasonably well, although it has its points to review, especially in subject territorial which is a pending subject in our history, which seemed to be saved with the model autonomic: it was a mirage. And although today it is not fashionable to say it: on paper, the Constitution, with its perfectible points, is a good legal text, advanced, complete and still a reference for other countries.

But the legal score has to be interpreted. It is there where -more recently and at the impulse of the said two "C's"- the exhaustion of the deposit of collective illusion that the 1978 Constitution has awakened for decades is generated. In other words, and in the face of today's rising discourses: the problem is not the score (the Constitution) but a part of the actors; and a couple of violins are enough to put the orchestra out of tune. If in 1978, the Constitution was a symbol of political hope and progress, today some want to present it as an instrument at the service of spurious interests. However, to judge the role of the Constitutional text in this way is, quite simply, to be outrageous.

Perhaps we should have taken seriously the need to reform the Constitution when it could be done. And there is a lot of ink on this. At this moment, I have more doubts than certainties: without seeing a clear horizon and still in the midst of economic and political problems, with a crisis of legitimacy from which we are not emerging, to talk about reforms is to pedal without the wheels touching the ground. To reform the constitutional text we need more than a desire to change it and the diagnosis of revisable issues, lest we leave it worse. It is necessary to have at least a direction and a spirit of agreement among the political actors that drags and excites the citizenship to overcome that feeling that many of us have of "fastidium" and whose treatment requires prudence -and not improvisation- dialogue and good doses of sense of State in the protagonists of the political process and patience and hope in the others.