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The term ‘accommodation’ refers to the capacity of states to contain conflict within the mechanisms and procedures embedded in existing institutional arrangements. During the first government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004–8), the Socialist government had to accommodate the Catalan proposal to reform the statute of autonomy and the controversial plan to turn the Basque Country into ‘an associated free state’ with Spain. Whereas the Basque initiative was rejected, the approval of the Catalan statute impelled several regions to apply for greater autonomy. Statute reform is a complex multilevel negotiation process characterised by intense party competition and heterogeneous policy results.