¡Teruel Existe!
| ¡Teruel Existe! Teruel exists! |
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| Party leader | Tomás Guitarte |
| founding | November 1999 |
| Alignment | regionalism |
| Colours) |
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| Spanish House of Representatives |
1/350 |
| Spanish Senate |
2/265 |
| MEPs |
0/59 |
| Website | www.teruelexiste.info |
¡Teruel Existe! (German: Teruel exists! ) is a citizens' movement in the Spanish province of Teruel that has existed since 1999 . In the Spanish parliamentary elections on November 10, 2019 , she ran as a group of voters , became the strongest force in the province and moved into the Spanish House of Representatives with one member .
Teruel Province
The province of Teruel is the southernmost of the three provinces in the Aragon region . It is one of the most rural in Spain. The population density is 9 inhabitants / km² (total Spain: 92.2 inhabitants / km²). The largest city and provincial capital Teruel has only 35,000 inhabitants, making it the provincial capital of Spain with the fewest inhabitants.
The population of the province affected by rural exodus decreased steadily from the beginning of the 20th century (1910: 266,000 inhabitants) to 2002 (only 133,000 inhabitants). By 2008 it rose briefly to 146,000 inhabitants and has been falling again since then (2019: 133,000 inhabitants).
Origin and development of the citizen movement
The citizens' movement has its origins in 1999, when various initiatives, each of which denounced specific grievances (no connection of the province to the motorway network , inadequate rail connections, problems in health care etc.), called for joint protests.
The province received a motorway connection with the A-23 ( Sagunto - Saragossa ) in 2005. A connection to the high-speed rail network is neither available nor planned in 2019.
In 2019, the topic of rural areas that felt left behind by development gained public attention under the catchphrase España vacía ("empty Spain") or España vaciada (" empty Spain") . On March 31, 2019, there was a demonstration in Madrid . ¡Teruel Existe! joined forces with similar movements from other regions to form the Coordinadora de la España Vaciada . On October 4, 2019, according to the organizers, 300,000 citizens followed the call for a five-minute protest at 10,0000 events in 23 provinces of Spain.
¡Teruel Existe! decided as a group of voters in the constituency of Teruel (identical to the province) to take part in the parliamentary elections on November 10, 2018. With 26.7% of the vote, it became the strongest force in the constituency, ahead of the PSOE (25.5%) and the PP (23.7%) and has since been one of the three members of the province in the Spanish Chamber of Deputies.