Spain

Reino de España
Flag	Coat of Arms
Capital	Madrid
Government	Constitutional Monarchy
Language	Spanish (official)
Monarch	King Felipe VI
Prime minister	Pedro Sánchez
Current Conservative Leader	Santiago Abascal
Area	195,364 sq mi
Population	46,750,000 (2020)
GDP	$1,400,000,000,000 (2020)
GDP per capita	$29,947 (2020)
Currency	Euro
Internet top-level domain	.es

Spain (Spanish: España), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España) is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe, bordered by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Gibraltar to the south, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and France and Andorra to the north. The Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla also border Morocco in Africa. Spain is a member of both NATO and the European Union, and a U.S. ally.

Spain has universal government-controlled health care which is virtually free to patients, at the expense of taxpayers. Its system is highly rated by liberal organizations, but fared very poorly during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 with a mortality rate much higher than every country other than Italy.

Bullfighting in Spain.

Spain's population density, lower than that of most European countries, is roughly equivalent to New England's. In recent years, following a longstanding pattern in the rest of Europe, rural populations are moving to cities. Urban areas are also experiencing a significant increase in immigrant populations, chiefly from North Africa, America, and Eastern Europe. Distinct ethnic groups within Spain include the Basques, Catalans, and Galicians. They compromise 91% of the population, 8% are Eastern European immigrants and North Africans number roughly 1%.

Spain has no official religion. The constitution of 1978 disestablished the Catholic Church as the official state religion, while recognizing the role it plays in Spanish society. More than 70% of the population is at least nominally Catholic. Among the remaining population, there are about 1.2 million evangelical Christians and other Protestants (2006 est.), 1 million Muslims (2006 est.) and 48,000 Jews (2006 est.).

Educational system

About 70% of Spain's student population attends public schools or universities. The remainder attend private schools or universities, the great majority of which are operated by the Catholic Church. Compulsory education begins with primary school or general basic education for ages 6–16. It is free in public schools and in many private schools, most of which receive government subsidies. Following graduation, students attend either a secondary school offering a general high school diploma or a school of professional education (corresponding to grades 9-12 in the United States) offering a vocational training program. The Spanish university system offers degree and post-graduate programs in all fields—law, sciences, humanities, and medicine—and the superior technical schools offer programs in engineering and architecture.

Francisco Franco.

Parliamentary democracy was restored following the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975, who had ruled since the end of the civil war in 1939. Luis Carrero Blanco, was designed by Franco to be the successor as the Head of Government, while Juan Carlos was designed as King and therefore, Head of State. In 1973 Carrero Blanco was assassinated by the terrorist organization ETA by blowing out his car after he attended Holy Mass, investigations claim that it happened with the help of the CIA^[1][2] by commandment of Kissinger,^[3] since Carrero Blanco wanted Spain to have Nuclear Weapons, maintain its system without a liberal democracy and to not join NATO, after the assassination, the destiny of Spain was changed forever.

The 1978 constitution established Spain as a parliamentary monarchy, with the prime minister responsible to the bicameral Cortes (Congress of Deputies and Senate) elected every 4 years. On February 23, 1981, rebel pro-Franco elements among the security forces seized the Cortes and tried to impose a military-backed government. However, the great majority of the military forces remained loyal to King Juan Carlos, who used his personal authority to put down the bloodless coup attempt. The CIA shaped Spain as a liberal democracy with the help of King Juan Carlos who changed the political system that he was supposed to continue.

In October 1982, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), led by Felipe Gonzalez, swept both the Congress of Deputies and Senate, winning an absolute majority. Gonzalez and the PSOE ruled for the next 13 years. During that period, Spain joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Community.

In March 1996, Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party (PP) won a plurality of votes. Aznar moved to decentralize powers to the regions and liberalize the economy, with a program of privatization, labor market reform, and measures designed to increase competition in selected markets. During Aznar's first term, Spain fully integrated into European institutions, qualifying for the European Monetary Union. During this period, Spain participated, along with the United States and other NATO allies, in military operations in the former Yugoslavia. Prime Minister Aznar and the PP won reelection in March 2000, obtaining absolute majorities in both houses of parliament.

Santoña, Cantabria.

After the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Prime Minister Aznar became a key ally in the fight against terrorism. Spain backed the military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan and took a leadership role within the European Union (EU) in pushing for increased international cooperation on terrorism. The Aznar government, with a rotating seat on the UN Security Council, supported the intervention in Iraq.

Spanish parliamentary elections on March 14, 2004 came only three days after a devastating terrorist attack on Madrid commuter rail lines that killed 191 and wounded over 1,400. With large voter turnout, PSOE won the election and its leader, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, took office on April 17, 2004. Carrying out campaign promises, the Zapatero government immediately withdrew Spanish forces from Iraq but has continued to support Iraq reconstruction efforts. The Zapatero government has supported coalition efforts in Afghanistan, including maintaining troop support for 2004 and 2005 elections, supported reconstruction efforts in Haiti, sent troops to UNIFIL in Lebanon, and cooperated on counterterrorism issues and many other issues of importance to the U.S.

In 2005, the Spanish parliament approved a same-sex marriage bill.

The PSOE won a plurality of seats in the Congress of Deputies in the 2008 general election, leading to the second Zapatero government.

On November 20, 2011, the PP won a majority in the Congress, and its leader Mariano Rajoy Brey took office as prime minister on December 21.

In June 2014 King Juan Carlos stepped down. As a result of it his son, Felipe VI is the king of Spain.^[4]

The subsequent general election, held on December 20, 2015, had an uncertain result, with both the PP and the PSOE falling well short of a majority. Rajoy formed a caretaker government, but negotiations among the four leading parties failed to reach an agreement. A snap election held on June 26, 2016, resulted in a better result for Rajoy's PP but it was still short of a majority. The king gave Rajoy the mandate to form a government, but there was no clear path to a majority coalition or a minority government with outside support. Finally, after Pedro Sánchez was ousted as its leader, the PSOE agreed that enough of its deputies would abstain to allow Rajoy to win approval on October 26 to lead a new government with the support of the Citizens and several minor regional parties.

The second Rajoy government lasted until June 1, 2018, when, amid numerous accusations of corruption in the PP, it lost a vote of no confidence. Pedro Sánchez, who had again become leader of the PSOE, formed a minority government with support of the left-wing Unidos Podemos alliance and minor parties. In 2019 two general elections were held in which the political party Vox gained seats in the Parliament. The party is the representative of Spanish Conservatism with its leader Santiago Abascal.

In 2023 Pedro Sánchez perpetuated himself in the government by obtaining the votes of separatist parties, after losing the majority of the vote in the general election. Mass patriot protests erupt in what was called National November.

Local Government

Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, Seville.

The 1978 constitution authorized the creation of regional autonomous governments. By 1985, 17 regions covering all of peninsular Spain, the Canaries, and the Balearic Islands had negotiated autonomy statutes with the central government. In 1979, the first autonomous elections were held in the Basque and Catalan regions, which have the strongest regional traditions by virtue of their history and separate languages. Since then, autonomous governments have been created in the remainder of the 17 regions. The central government continues to devolve powers to the regional governments, which will eventually have full responsibility for health care and education, as well as other social programs.

Spain is divided into seventeen autonomous communities and two autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla, which are in north Africa next to Morocco). The seventeen autonomous communities are further divided into fifty provinces.

Terrorism

Mural with the anagram of Batasuna.

The Government of Spain is involved in a long-running campaign against Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), a terrorist organization founded in 1959 and dedicated to promoting Basque independence. ETA targets Spanish security forces, military personnel, Spanish Government officials, and politicians of the Popular Party and the Socialist Party (PSOE.) The group has carried out numerous bombings against Spanish Government facilities and economic targets, including a car bomb assassination attempt on then-opposition leader Aznar in 1995, in which his armored car was destroyed but he was unhurt. The Spanish Government attributes over 800 deaths to ETA terrorism since its campaign of violence began. In recent years, the government has had more success in controlling ETA, due in part to increased security cooperation with French authorities.

In November 1999, ETA ended a cease-fire it declared in September 1998. Following the end of that ceasefire, ETA conducted a campaign of violence and has been blamed for the deaths of some 46 Spanish citizens and officials. Each attack has been followed by massive anti-ETA demonstrations around the country, clearly demonstrating that the majority of Spaniards, including the majority of Spain's Basque populace, have no tolerance for continued ETA violence. In March 2006, ETA declared another ceasefire, which it ended in June 2007. The government continues to pursue vigorous counterterrorist policy and has worked closely with its international allies to foil several suspected ETA attacks.

Spain also contends with a resistance group, commonly known as GRAPO. GRAPO is an urban left-wing terrorist group that seeks to overthrow the Spanish Government and establish a Marxist state. It opposes Spanish participation in NATO and U.S. military presence in Spain and has a long history of assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings mostly against Spanish interests during the 1970s and 1980s.

In a June 2000 communique following the explosions of two small devices in Barcelona, GRAPO claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks throughout Spain during the past year. These attacks included two failed armored car robberies, one in which two security officers died, and four bombings of political party offices during the 1999/2000 election campaign. In 2002 and 2003, Spanish and French authorities were successful in hampering the organization's activities through sweeping arrests, including some of the group's leadership.

Al Qaeda is known to operate cells in Spain. On March 11, 2004, only three days before national elections, 10 bombs were detonated on crowded commuter trains during rush hour. Three were deactivated by security forces and one was found unexploded. Evidence quickly surfaced that jihadist terrorists with possible ties to the Al Qaeda network were responsible for the attack that killed 191 people. Spanish investigative services and the judicial system have aggressively sought to arrest and prosecute suspected Al Qaeda members and actively cooperate with foreign governments to diminish the transnational terrorist threat. A Spanish court convicted 18 individuals in September 2005 for their role in supporting Al Qaeda, and Spanish police disrupted numerous Islamist extremist cells operating in the country. The trial against 29 people for their alleged participation in the Madrid March 11, 2004 terrorist attack started in February 2007, and was declared ready for judgment at the end of June. One of the 29 was absolved during the trial. The prosecutor asked for sentences as high as 30,000 years of jail for some of them. The court is expected to issue the sentence sometime in October 2007.

Principal government officials

• Chief of State, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces—King Felipe VI
• President of the Government (Prime Minister)—Pedro Sánchez
• Minister of Foreign Affairs—Miguel Angel Moratinos
• Ambassador to the United States—Carlos Westendorp y Cabeza

Foreign relations

After the return of democracy following the death of General Franco in 1975, Spain's foreign policy priorities were to review the status of its African colonies, expand diplomatic relations, enter the European Community, and define security relations with the West.

Monument to Alfonso XII, Madrid.

As a member of NATO since 1982, Spain has established itself as a major participant in multilateral international security activities. Spain's EU membership represents an important part of its foreign policy. Even on many international issues beyond Western Europe, Spain prefers to coordinate its efforts with its EU partners through the European political cooperation mechanism.

With the normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel and Albania in 1986, Spain virtually completed the process of universalizing its diplomatic relations. The only country with which it now does not have diplomatic relations is North Korea.

Spain has maintained its special identification with Latin America. Its policy emphasizes the concept of Hispanidad, a mixture of linguistic, religious, ethnic, cultural, and historical ties binding Spanish-speaking America to Spain. Spain has been an effective example of transition from authoritarianism to democracy, as shown in the many trips that Spain's King and Prime Ministers have made to the region. Spain maintains economic and technical cooperation programs and cultural exchanges with Latin America, both bilaterally and within the EU.

Spain also continues to focus attention on North Africa, especially on Morocco. This concern is dictated by geographic proximity and long historical contacts, as well as by the two Spanish enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the northern coast of Africa. While Spain's departure from its former colony of Western Sahara ended direct Spanish participation in Morocco, it maintains an interest in the peaceful resolution of the conflict brought about there by decolonization. These issues were highlighted by a crisis in 2002, when Spanish forces evicted a small contingent of Moroccans from a tiny islet off Morocco's coast following that nation's attempt to assert sovereignty over the island.

Meanwhile, Spain has gradually begun to broaden its contacts with Sub-Saharan Africa. It has a particular interest in its former colony of Equatorial Guinea, where it maintains a large aid program.

In relations with the Arab world, Spain has sought to promote European-Mediterranean dialog. Spain strongly supports the EU's "Barcelona Process" which seeks to expand dialog and trade between Europe and the nations of North Africa and the Middle East, including Israel. It is seen by some as too greatly favoring the European Union. Other proposals are on the table, including one put forward by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. The latest meeting on the Barcelona initiative was held on November 29, 2005.

Spain has been successful in managing its relations with its two European neighbors, France and Portugal. The accession of Spain and Portugal to the EU has helped ease some of their periodic trade frictions by putting these into an EU context. Franco-Spanish bilateral cooperation is enhanced by joint action against Basque ETA terrorism. Ties with the United Kingdom are generally good, although the question of Gibraltar remains a sensitive issue.

During the Russo-Ukraine war, Russian radio pranksters Vovan and Lexus called mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida of Madrid pretending to be mayor Vitali Klitschko of Kyiv. They persuaded Martinez-Almeida to organize a gay parade in honor of World War II Ukrainian Nazi war criminal Stepan Bandera. Martinez-Almeida asked if Bandera himself would attend the parade, and expressed condolences to the Ukrainian side after learning that the "icon of the gay community" had already died. Martinez-Almeida also promised to send Ukrainian refugees to fight in Ukraine: "They should not rest on the beaches of Spain. Now their task is to die on the battlefield."^[5]

El Escorial, an important touristic site.

Spain's accession to the European Community—now European Union (EU) -- in January 1986 required the country to open its economy to trade and investment, modernize its industrial base, improve infrastructure, and revise economic legislation to conform to EU guidelines. In doing so, Spain increased gross domestic product (GDP) growth, reduced the national debt to GDP ratio, reduced unemployment from 23% in 1986 to 8.47% in first quarter 2007, and reduced inflation to under 3%. The fundamental challenges remaining for Spain include decreasing unemployment further, reforming labor laws lowering inflation, and raising per capita GDP. Spain is currently the thirteenth-largest economy in the world.

Following peak growth years in the late 1980s, the Spanish economy entered into recession in mid-1992. The economy recovered during the first Aznar administration (1996-2000), driven by a return of consumer confidence and increased private consumption, although growth has slowed in recent years. Unemployment remains a problem at 8.47% (2007, first quarter), but this still represents a significant improvement from previous levels. Devaluations of the peseta during the 1990s made Spanish exports more competitive, but the strength of the euro since its adoption has raised recent concerns that Spanish exports are being priced out of the range of foreign buyers.

Following the financial problems starting in the USA the economy of Spain had serious problems. Like the US, it had a huge housing bubble. Unlike the US, the banking sector relied on small Cajas de Ahorros. When the housing market collapsed, most of the Cajas de Ahorros found themselves with red balance sheets, sparking the Spanish banking crisis. The collapse of the housing market also had a devastating effect on the construction and service sector. A surplus of housing also led to the collapse of prices in the rental sector.

Spain's public sector is proportionally smaller than most, including those of the US. Nevertheless, Mariano Rajoy's government has sought to privatize most of the remaining state-run sector while increasing subsidies to banks like Santander and Bankia and cutting investment in infrastructure. The cost of these reforms has further burdened the Spanish the economy, causing considerable social unrest as cuts to education and health start to bite people find less money in their pockets.

Will of Isabel I, Queen of Castile.

Main article: History of Spain

Hispanic Catholic Monarchy

The peoples, whatever their development, are sustained by their traditions, habits and customs. those who preceded us, in the Americas before the arrival of Spain, managed, thanks to this, to become a very important part of the Christian civilization, as firm guardians of its limits at the edge of the world. The first encounters, as always happened in history, had their altercations, but after getting to know each other, they built during three centuries an Hispanicamerican Empire of peace and prosperity. The indigenous peoples gained access to the improvement of sowing and cultivation, to water management, which is imperative to pass from the tribal state to the civilizing one.

They learned to write and to enrich their native languages. They enriched the Castilian languague by turning it into Spanish, into a universal language. it was in the enveloping forge of those times that those peoples, freed from the most powerful tribes, chose to belong to that new way of seeing and feeling life, to the civilization of Jesus, "the good God", as the first indigenous people who freed themselves from the bloodthirsty despotism of the Aztecs and other tribes called him.

In those three centuries, the Spanish Catholic Monarchy, which was never called the Spanish Empire, because the faith unified in its diversities all the peoples that belonged to it, managed to maintain an impossible enterprise in a very long period of time, which can only be understood as a miracle germinated in a will of steel. The unity of these peoples by means of a Crown that represented a leap in their development and a spiritual elevation, fused in their souls the ethos and the tellus, the being of their souls with their land, gave them the final meaning to their lives, consolidated the pathos that is the understanding with the other. If there is an aboriginal philosophy, it is an heir of Greece and Spain, which had integrated them into the world.

To be Spanish meant for them to understand what it means to be owners of their lands and builders of their destinies. One day, the mists of revolution intrude into that spiritual clarity that was in their lives, and with it they lose all their rights. From being owners of their lands they become permanent exiles, thus losing all dominion in the full sense of the word. They no longer have dominion over their lives. That is why the indigenous people of southern Chile said to Charles Darwin a few years after the secession of Hispanic America: "You see us as poor now, but it was not like that when we had our king".

That is the legacy of the "liberators": to have collaborated with little political awareness to a global and foreign strategy of domination over Hispanic America. Perhaps that is why Belgrano, Bolivar, San Martin and Aguinaldo expressed their regrets later.

In Asia they traded with the Spanish Currency, until the Empire disappeared and was replaced by the British Pound that took the Asian market and we with poverty disguised as freedom. Most of the Indians were loyal royalists, because they trusted more in their kingdom-to-kingdom pacts than in the promises of the criollos.^[6][7]

The Jota (Aragon) by Joaquín Sorolla

The "Hispanic monarchy", rectius the "Catholic monarchy", as it was known, corresponds to Christendom. Christianity, perhaps not to the greater Christianity of the so-called "media", but at least to another of smaller radius which, within a not so small world, wanted to continue to be a part of it. But at least to another of smaller radius that, in the bosom of a not so small world, wanted to continue the furrow of that one with the civilization of the Baroque.

It was, therefore, a reality of unequivocal political sign. it was broken, on both shores of the common nation, by the liberal revolution on the eastern side and on the western side - in addition - by the secession desired by England. those who opposed the first were called royalists and finally would be the Carlists. But the dynastic quarrel does not hide its moral and doctrinal entrails, which those who resisted the second did not always succeed in gauging. It was the success of the unholy enterprise that disjointed the cultural and political community.

Only time healed the wounds: thus emerged - as a substitute term - Hispanidad. which, excluding the political dimension, was based on deep religious, moral and cultural foundations. hence the so-called "patriots" continued to be the object of general worship. and also the "others", the creole realists, were forgotten. it is true that the Novogranadinian Luis Corsi Otálora, the Peruvian Fernán Altuve-Febres or the Rioplatean Manuel González have left us some valuable testimonies about them.^[8]

During this the late Dark Age, the Inquisitions started and would continue through the time of the Protestant Reformation and beyond. The medieval inquisition focused on rooting out Cathars, while the later inquisitions, such as the Spanish Inquisition, focused on people who were believed to be secretly practicing Judaism or Islam following the legally mandated conversion to Christianity of all Jews and Muslims remaining in Spain.

The Lepanto Battle was won by the Christian alliance against the Turks by praying the Rosary, having the intersetion of the Virgin Mary.^[9]

Evangelization of the New Discovered lands by Spain

Hernan Cortés depicted in the conquest of Mexico and the liberation of Aztec victim Indigenous groups.

The Spanish Empire converted into Catholicism the indigenous people of the Americas and the Philippines, having the miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe that helped to convert millions in the New Spain Viceroyalty (Mexico nowadays).^[10][11]

The Catholic Monarchs asked the Salamanca University if the people of the New World were worthy of being evangelized, the answer was yes and this they were considered humans with a soul, like the Europeans. The Encomienda system was put in place, being reformed with the Burgos Laws against slavery.^[12] Queen Isabel the Catholic prohibited slavery on June 20, 1500,^[13] following the Catholic doctrine and the advice of the Salamanca University.^[14][15]

Thanks to the Spanish Conquistadors, human sacrifices made by the Aztecs, Mayas and other groups ceased, having as allies other indigenous groups that were victims of the demonic system. Hernán Cortés liberated those groups with the help of them.

The Holy Inquisition was not applied to natives.

While the Church lost many souls in Europe, many more were gained in the Americas and the Philippines.

The so-called national sport of Spain is the bullfighting, although real national sport is Soccer (Fútbol).

Portrait of Anita de la Ferie, 'The Spanish Dancer'

In June 2024, Spain's conservative People's Party wins 34.2% of the vote, ahead of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialist Workers' Party.^[16]

Francisco de Goya, Naturaleza muerta con frutas, botellas, panes, ca. 1824-1826.

• Spanish Painting
• Gallery of Spanish Masterpieces
• Famous Spanish Artists
• Spanish Still Life Painting
• Spanish Golden Age

Francisco de Zurbarán, La defensa de Cádiz, 1634.

Sculpture of pope Juan Pablo II at Alcalá de Henares.

• Spain CIA - The World Factbook.
• The Tourist Office of Spain

1. ↑ La CIA, los espías del PNV y el asesinato de Carrero Blanco
2. ↑ ¡Fue la CIA, estúpidos!: A punto de cumplirse su 48 aniversario: La muerte de Carrero Blanco cambió la historia de España, 2021, Amadeo Martínez Inglés
3. ↑ Kissinger en el asesinato de Carrero (nº 59)
4. ↑ http://online.wsj.com/articles/spanish-king-juan-carlos-to-abdicate-prime-minister-says-1401699434
5. ↑ https://youtu.be/HWIcDIrXFmE
6. ↑ Patricio Lons
7. ↑ Suereños a las Armas, 2019, Ángelo Guiñez Jarpa
8. ↑ Miguel Ayuso Torres (Madrid, 1961)
9. ↑ Lepanto: la batalla histórica contra los turcos que se ganó rezando el rosario (es). COPE (October 7, 2021).
10. ↑ La Virgen de Guadalupe: ¿Cómo se apareció? ¿Qué hechos ocurrieron? ¿Cómo cambió el mundo? (es). Religión en Libertad (December 11, 2023).
11. ↑ P. Jorge Loring. El misterio de la Virgen de Guadalupe mexicana (es). Catholic.net.
12. ↑ Leyes de Burgos, las reales ordenanzas para proteger a los indígenas del Nuevo Mundo (es). Zenda (Decemeber 27, 2023).
13. ↑ 20 de junio de 1500 (es). Academia de Ciencia y Artes Militares.
14. ↑ Desmontando "la falsa leyenda negra" de Isabel La Católica (es). Libertad Digital.
15. ↑ Isabel la Católica, la reina que liberó a los esclavos (es). La Razón (February 28, 2019).
16. ↑ Drama in Spain: Pedro Sanchez's party is in second place, Maariv, June 10, 2024..

    Spain's conservative People's Party wins 34.2% of the vote, ahead of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialist Workers' Party with 30.2%.

    Almost all the votes have been counted. Recall that Sanchez recently called for the recognition of a Palestinian state and condemned Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip.

    • Clara Preve, Spain: Centre-right PP beats Sanchez' socialists by slight majority, exit polls say, Euronews, June 10, 2024