Ghost Dog
Ghost Dog's JournalSpain's Popular Party leads EP election but small parties real winners
Source: New Europe
... The PP were the most voted for political party taking 26.04 percent of the vote and seeing their representation in the EP drop from 24 to 16 seats, while their share of the votes was 18 percent down from their win in the 2011 General Election which they garnered 44 percent of the votes...
... The PSOE polled just 23.02 percent, three percent less than the PP and around 6 percent down from their 2011 General election showing. The PSOE have won 14 seats in the EP, nine fewer than the 23 they won in 2009...
... Perhaps the standout factor for Sunday's results is that Spain's two major parties polled less than 50 percent of the total vote on a day when minority parties saw their share of the vote increase dramatically. This led some commentators to speculate as to whether this could be the end of the two-party dominance in the country.
The United Left claimed 9.99 percent of the vote and now have six seats in Brussels, four more than in 2009, while the newly formed "Podemos" (We Can) party, a left wing coalition, claimed 7.93 percent of the vote and won five seats. The center-right Union Progress and Democracy went from winning one to four seats.
Read more: http://www.neurope.eu/article/spains-popular-party-leads-ep-election-small-parties-real-winners
My preferred Title: Left,, Green and 'Indignados' parties gain most in Spanish EU election
The United Left is in coalition with Greens in Spain. This is the traditional real left. The new party 'Podemos says it will now, Indignados and Occupy-style (and indeed Chiapas-style), form open discussion circles in every locality on the basis of which to form policy. This is reminiscent of Kropotkin-style political ideas. The UPD's discourse mostly involves criticising the corruption in the two main parties (as do all). There are zero far-right parties with any weight at all in Spanish politics, except of course the PP, or significant sectors of the PP, heir to Franco's Catholic elitist authoritarians, itself.
In Catalonia the Catallan nationalist (seeking independence) ERC-led Left coalition trounced the also nationalist right wing and 'business' party CiU currently governing the Generalitat.
In the Canary Islands a majority voted Left for the first time in a long time, and the United Left and especially Podemos strongly surged.
Similar patterns will doubtless be found throughout the Iberian Peninsula and Islands...
Diclotican: Re. The Orkneys and The Shetlands
So, on reflection extrapolating from your earlier communication, the Danish crown, dominating the whole of Scandinavia at the time, finding itself all-but bankrupt (because largely of warring, I guess), looks around a little further out but still in fact well within the local Scandinavian-influenced world at that time, sees an opportunity to make a deal with the Scottish crown: the loan in cash or whatever easily-negotiable goods in exchange for the Orkneys and the Shetlands (but not eg. the Faröes) on lien.
The deal is struck; Denmark gets paid as agreed and Scotand gets the islands.
The Danish crown does not repay the loan so Scotland keeps the islands.
Fair deal, right? Yeah. Cool.
But hang on a minute.
From a Norwegian point of view, the Danish crown was occupying Norway at the time and sold Norwegian islands to Scotland (Norwegians, doubtless, not being consulted).
Denmarks's domination of Scandinavia did not persist.
Today, the situation established then persists..Regardless of whether the Danish crown had the right or not to sell the islands, obviously for Norwegians there is sentiment there.
As there is obviously sentiment in Scotland.
What in the future, it occurs to me, would be beautiful to see, would be an independent Scottish Republic in perhaps or perhaps not a Union but certainly a Special Relationship with Norway, inside and/or outside the EU.
Your thoughts?
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Canary Islands Archipelago
Home country: Spain
Member since: Wed Apr 19, 2006, 01:59 PM
Number of posts: 16,881
