European elections in Spain 2009

European elections in Spain 20092014 →

 %

50

40

30th

20th

10

0

42.12

38.78

5.10

3.71

2.85

2.49

4.95

PP

PSOE

CEU

IU

UPYD

Edp-V

LS ^g

Gains and losses

compared to 2004

 % p

   4th

   2

   0

  -2

  -4

  -6

+0.91

-4.68

-0.05

-0.44

+2.85

+0.04

+1.37

PP

PSOE

CEU

IU

UPYD

Edp-V

LS ^g

Remarks:

^g Blank ballot papers and others

The 2009 European elections in Spain took place on June 7, 2009. It was part of the EU- wide European elections in 2009 , with 50 of the 736 seats in the European Parliament in Spain . If the Lisbon Treaty comes into force during the 2009-2014 legislative period, four more Spanish MPs will join the parliament. The polling stations were open between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Electoral system

The European election takes place in Spain after the proportional system in the D'Hondt method . The whole of Spain forms a single constituency, no threshold clause is applied.

Political run-up to the election

As in other countries, the 2009 European elections in Spain were primarily perceived as a national “test election”. It came just over a year after the Spanish parliamentary election in March 2008 , in which the PSOE minority government under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was re-elected. Both the PSOE and the conservative opposition party PP had gained slightly at the expense of the smaller parties. The chairman of the PP, Mariano Rajoy , was considered ailing within the party after the elections. Although he was confirmed in office at a party congress in mid-2008, the media have often associated his political future with a good performance in the European elections.

In the following months, Spain suffered an economic slump and a sharp rise in unemployment as a result of the international financial crisis and a national real estate crisis , which led to the expectation that the ruling party PSOE would perform poorly, which was often accused by the public of lacking energy in combating the crisis. In fact, the PP was initially ahead in the polls. However, several high-ranking members of the PP were involved in a corruption scandal, the so-called Caso belt , since February 2009 , which is why investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzón initially initiated an investigation. In May 2009, this affair reached, among others, the PP Prime Minister of the Region of Valencia , Francisco Camps , who was questioned as a suspect on May 20 . As a result, the PSOE caught up again in the polls. In the polls, the small parties did not benefit from the weakness of the two mainstream parties.

Campaigning parties and lists

The Spanish party system is characterized by a large number of regional parties . These parties can make up the majority in individual regions, but across Spain only achieve results of 3% or less. In order to increase their chances of receiving seats in the European elections - in which, in contrast to national elections, the provinces are not counted as constituencies , but the whole country is a single constituency - the regional and other small parties form joint electoral lists. However, these are generally only alliances of convenience that are renegotiated between the parties before each individual European elections. Although the parties on a list usually have certain programmatic overlaps, they often belong to different European parties at the European level .

The following electoral lists took part:

PSOE

Juan Fernando López Aguilar (2008).

Member parties : Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC)

Top candidate: Juan Fernando López Aguilar , followed by Ramón Jáuregui and Magdalena Álvarez . Josep Borrell , who was President of the European Parliament from 2004-2007 , came last on the list.

Its Catalan sister party, the PSC, also joined the PSOE's list. Both parties belong to the Party of European Socialists (PES) at European level . The Spanish Greens ( Confederación de Los Verdes ), who formed a joint list with the PSOE in the 2004 European elections , competed in another electoral alliance in 2009.

PP

Jaime Mayor Oreja (2009).

Member parties : Partido Popular (PP)

Top candidate: Jaime Mayor Oreja , followed by Luis de Grandes Pascual and Teresa Jiménez-Becerril Barrio .

The PP, which is a member of the European People's Party (EPP) at European level , ran for election alone. The Navarres regional party UPN , which had a firm alliance with the PP until 2008, did not run for the European elections and announced that it would not make any recommendations for a specific list.

Coalición por Europa (CEU)

Member parties : Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC), Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), Bloc Nacionalista Valencià (Bloc), Unió Mallorquina (UM), Unió Menorquina (UMe), Coalición (CC) and Canaria (CC) Partido Andalucista (PA)

Leading candidate: Ramon Tremosa (CDC), followed by Izaskun Bilbao (PNV) and Salvador Sedó (UDC)

The Coalición por Europa (“Coalition for Europe”) comprises the large bourgeois-conservative regional parties from Catalonia (CDC, UDC) and the Basque Country (PNV). The Galician BNG , which had also formed an alliance with these parties in the 2004 European elections , decided not to join the list in 2009, but various other, smaller regional parties joined them. At the European level, the parties on the list belong to very different party groupings: UDC belongs to the European People's Party (EPP), CDC and UM are part of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party (ELDR), the PNV is a member of the European Democratic Party (EDP) and the PA of the European Free Alliance (EFA). The other parties on the list do not belong to any European party.

Europa de los Pueblos - Verdes (EdP-V)

Member parties : Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG), Aralar , Eusko Alkartasuna (EA), Chunta Aragonesista (CHA), Entesa per Mallorca (ExM), Els Verds - Confederació Ecologista de Catalunya (EV-CEC) and Confederación de Los Verdes .

Top candidate: Oriol Junqueras (ERC), followed by Ana Miranda Paz (BNG), Iñaki Irazabalbeitia (Aralar) and Pura Peris (Confederación de Los Verdes)

The list Europa de los Pueblos - Verdes ("Europe of the Peoples - Greens") mainly includes left-wing nationalist parties. Several of them, namely ERC, BNG, EA and CHA, belong to the European Free Alliance (EFA). The Confederación de Los Verdes is a member of the European Green Party (EGP), which forms a joint group with the EFA in the European Parliament. In the 2004 European elections , the Confederación was on a joint list with the PSOE.

La Izquierda

Member parties : Izquierda Unida (IU), Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (EUiA), Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV) and Bloque por Asturies (BA).

Lead candidate: Willy Meyer bankruptcy (IU), followed by Raül Romeva (ICV)

The list La Izquierda ("The Left") is the joint list of the Spain-wide left party IU and its Catalan sister party EUiA (both part of the European Left ) and the Catalan Green Party ICV, which is a member of the European Green Party (EGP).

Unión Progreso y Democracia

Member parties : Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPyD)

Top candidate: Francisco Sosa Wagner

The UPyD party, newly founded in 2007, which sees itself as a centrist alternative to the PP and PSOE and criticizes the heavy weight of the regional parties in Spain, ran for the European elections alone.

Libertas-Ciudadanos de España

Member parties : Ciudadanos - Partido de la Ciudadanía (C's), Unión del Pueblo Salmantino (UPS) and Partido Social Demócrata (PSD)

Leading candidate: Miguel Durán Campos, followed by José Manuel Villegas (C's)

The list of Libertas-Ciudadanos de España ("Libertas Citizens of Spain") is dominated by the Catalan party C's, which criticizes Catalan nationalism. C's had initially proposed a joint electoral list to UPyD, which was rejected by UPyD. Then C's formed a joint list called Ciudadanos de España together with some other small parties , which then came to an agreement with the European party Libertas and acted as its Spanish offshoot. After this agreement, the non-party Miguel Durán Campos, former president of the ONCE lottery and the television station Telecinco , was presented as the new top candidate, the candidate from C's took second place on the list.

More lists

In addition to the lists mentioned, which include all member parties that are also represented in the Spanish or regional parliament, numerous other parties and party associations ran for elections: With a total of 35 nominations, Spain was the country in which most of the different groups stood for election. The list of Iniciativa Internacionalista was banned by the Spanish Supreme Court in mid-May because it was seen as a continuation of the activities of the banned Batasuna party , but a week later the Constitutional Court overturned the judgment.

Survey

Institute	date	PP	PSOE	CEU	UPyD	IU	EdP-V	Others	"Invalid"
La Vanguardia	05/31/2009	40.9%	42.5%	4.9%	3.3%	3.2%	2.2%	-	-
Obradoiro de Socioloxía / Público	05/31/2009	42.6%	40.0%	3.8%	2.8%	4.0%	2.7%	3.1	1.0
Metroscopia / El País	05/31/2009	43.0%	39.3%	5.0%	3.0%	4.1%	3.9%	-	-
NC Report / La Razón	05/25/2009	43.7%	41.0%	4.5%	2.9%	3.9%	2.0%	-	-
CIS (PDF; 68 kB)	05/21/2009	42.2%	42.8%	5.1%	1.3%	3.1%	3.6%	-	-
NC Report / La Razón	05/11/2009	42.8%	40.0%	4.6%	3.4%	5.1%	2.2%	1.8%	-
Obradoiro de Socioloxía / Público	05/10/2009	44.0%	40.0%	4.0%	3.7%	3.5%	1.6%	2.2%	1.0%
NC Report / La Razón	April 20, 2009	43.3%	39.0%	4.8%	3.2%	5.3%	2.2%	2.2%	-
SigmaDos / El Mundo	04/12/2009	42.3%	37.9%	4.3%	4.4%	5.0%	2.2%	3.9%	-
Obradoiro de Socioloxía / Público	04/12/2009	43.5%	39.0%	4.8%	3.2%	4.9%	1.9%	1.7%	1.0%

Result

	number	%
Eligible voters	34,261,872	100.0
voter turnout	15,761,963	46.0
Empty voices	220.178	1.4
Invalid votes	98.079	0.6
Valid votes	15,443,706	98.0

list	EP Group	Voices 2009		Seats 2009	Voices 2004		Seats 2004	Difference in 2009/2004
		number	%		number	%		be right	Seats
PP	EPP-ED	6,615,015	42.2	23	6,393,192	41.2	24	1.0	−1
PSOE	SPE	6,032,500	38.5	21st	6,741,112	43.5	25th	−5.0	−4
CEU	ALDE	802.225	5.1	2	798.816	5.2	2	−0.0	-
IU - ICV	GUE-NGL , Greens / EFA	583,708	3.7	2	643.136	4.2	2	−0.4	-
UPyD	-	449,499	2.9	1	-	-	-	2.9	1
EdP-V	Greens / EFA	391,962	2.5	1	380,709	2.5	1	0.1	-
II	-	175,895	1.1	-	-	-	-	1.1	-
Others	-	392.901	2.5	-	-	2.8	-	−0.3	-

After the Treaty of Lisbon came into force, two more MPs from the PP, one from the PSOE and one from the electoral alliance CEU (namely Salvador Sedó , UDC) moved up.

The electoral alliance EdP-V agreed that the won seats on the list should rotate among all members who had won more than 40,000 votes in their respective regions. According to the result, the mandate won would have to rotate between ERC, BNG, Aralar and Confederación de Los Verdes. Oriol Junqueras (ERC) is expected to take the seat for the first two and a half years, Ana Miranda Paz (BNG) and Iñaki Irazabalbeitia (Aralar) each for one year, and Pura Peris (Los Verdes) for the last six months of the legislature.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.eu-info.de/dpa-europaticker/152038.html
2. ↑ El País , August 30, 2008: La reválida de Rajoy ; El País , May 22, 2009: PSOE y PP miden fuerzas en plena crisis (in Spanish).
3. ↑ El País , May 21, 2009: Camps se presenta ante el juez sin pruebas (in Spanish).
4. ↑ El País , June 3, 2009: Curiosidades de las Elecciones Europeas .
5. ↑ El País , May 21, 2009: El Constitucional permite presentarse a la lista anulada por el Supremo (in Spanish); EurActiv 25 May 2009: New Spanish party suspected of terrorist links .

Web links

• 2009 European elections, on the website of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior (in Spanish).