1. SPAIN

3. Basic information
 Madrid – capital city
 Parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy
 1986 - EU accesion; 2002 - Euro zone; in 2010 assumed a rotating
presidency in EU
 Spain is the fourth largest European country in terms of area
 Spain has a population of 44.7 million inhabitants, which is expected
to reach 50 million by 2020
 3 other languages are co-officials: Catalan, Basque, Galician
 Second largest inflow of tourists annually

4. Monarchy
 One of 7 monarchies in EU
 Juan Carlos I
 constitutional monarchy
(1978)
 symbol of Spain's enduring
unity and permanence
 king serves as the head-of-
state and commander-in-
chief of the Spanish Armed
Forces

5. Legislative branch
 Bicameral parliament
(Cortes Generales)
 Congress of Deputies
- 350 members (elected by
popular vote on block lists by
proportional representation)
 Senate
- 259 seats (208 are directly
elected by popular vote and
the other 51 appointed by the
regional legislatures)
 Four-year terms

6. Political parties
 Multi-party system with two dominant parties
Party Ideology Results Seats
(2008)
Spanish Socialists Social liberalism, Third Way, social 43.87% 169
Workers' Party progressivism, centre-left
(PSOE)
People's Party (PP) Conservatism, liberal conservatism, 39.94% 154
Christian democracy, neoliberalism
Convergence and Union Catalan nationalism, conservatism, 3.03% 10
(CiU) liberal conservatism, Christian
democracy
Basque Nationalist Basque nationalism, conservatism, 1.19% 6
Party (PNV) liberal conservatism, Christian

7. Executive branch
 Council of Ministers
presided over by Prime
Minister (gender equality
ratio)
 nominated and
appointed by the
monarch; confirmed by
the Congress of Deputies
following legislative
elections

8. Cohesion country
 Spain between 1995 and 2007
narrowed the gap with the rest of
EU-27 in terms of gross (has reached
106.8% of the EU average GDP per
head)
 Successes: 1 200 km of new roads
and motorways; 850 km of Spanish
high-speed rail network; support for
377 000 people in terms of
social/economic activities; renovation
of 2 000 km of water pipelines and
construction of 600 km of new
pipelines; an investment of around €4
billion on R&D and innovation
 Beneficiary of EU Solidarity Fund
(2002)

9. State of Autonomies
 17 Autonomous
Communities and two
Autonomous Cities
(each with its own
parliament and
government)
 The Autonomous
Communities are sub-
divided into 50
provinces

10. Terrorism
 ETA - an armed Basque  Madrid 2004 – train
nationalist and separatist bombings; 191 people
organization, founded in killed (3 days before
1959 general elections)
 in 2010 ETA offered an
indefinate ceasefire