MADRID (AFP) -- A failed 1981 coup d’etat in Spain strengthened the country's young democracy, Spanish lawmakers acknowledged Thursday in commemorating the event's 25th anniversary.

It was on February 23, 1981 that Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina charged into Parliament with fellow members of the paramilitary civil guard and some 200 soldiers, brandishing a pistol and ordering legislators in the process of debating a new government to lie down.

The coup failed when King Juan Carlos, who had ascended the throne on the death of military dictator General Francisco Franco in November 1975, ordered the army back to barracks and said democracy must prevail. Marking the anniversary, parliament noted with "satisfaction" that "the failed coup had the opposite effect to that which the plotters had hoped and ended up reinforcing the democratic order in Spain."

The unanimously approved declaration was read by the president of the lower chamber, ruling Socialist Party member Manuel Marin, who was in Parliament when the coup occurred. The statement noted that "the absence of popular support, the exemplary attitude of citizens and the responsible behavior of political parties and unions" as well as of "democratic institutions incarnated notably by the crown" were "sufficient to frustrate the coup."

At the time, troops occupied Spanish television headquarters in Madrid and tanks were deployed in the eastern city of Valencia, where the coup originated under Lieutenant General Jaime Milan del Bosch.

But most generals were hesitant to support the coup and when the king ordered them to declare their loyalty to the crown and the "constitutional order" the uprising collapsed.

According to an article Thursday in right-wing daily El Mundo, Del Bosch had told his fellow plotters the king backed the plot.

Spain is marking the anniversary with the greatest discretion, with the king himself on a state visit to Thailand Thursday.

Centre left newspaper El Pais said the failed coup marked the "disappearance of 'putschism' as a political problem in Spain," which had endured decades of turbulence going back to the Second Republic's overthrow by Franquist forces that emerged victorious in the 1936-39 Civil War.

Today, "in a Spain which is democratic, there exists no autonomous military power but an army submitted to civilian power," El Pais added.

Defense Minister Jose Bono noted that the "sound of (army) boots" was no longer to be heard in Spanish political life and expressed the view that the events of 1981 seemed as if they had occurred "25 centuries ago".

Nonetheless, Bono had earlier this year to sanction two senior officers who opined that the army would have a duty to intervene if the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia were to receive upgraded autonomy from Madrid. Main conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy welcomed on behalf of his Popular Party (PP) the failure of the coup attempt which was now "history." He added: "Today, Spain is a democratic, civilized European country where thinking that such a thing could come to pass is absurd."

Antonio Tejero, who served half of a 30-year jail term for his role in the attempted putsch, earlier told Melilla Hoy newspaper that "Spain would no longer be Spain" if the proposed Catalan statute came into force.

"Spain would no longer be Spain -- they would have killed it," the former officer said.

The proposed statute confers the status of a nation on Catalonia and broadens its tax-raising and judicial powers.

In January, the former soldier, now 73, had written to the same paper backing a referendum on the issue, an idea favored by the PP.