Union, Progress and Democracy

Origins

On 19 May 2007, 45 people met in San Sebastián to discuss the creation of a new political party opposing both major parties (the People's Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) at the national level. Most present were Basques, many of whom had long experience in political, union and civic organizations with left-wing, liberal and activist backgrounds. After the meeting, to create a broad-based social and political project they formed the Plataforma Pro organization. This united those who considered it necessary to form a new national political party appealing to people across the democratic political spectrum. Its platform was:

Among the supporters of Plataforma Pro were philosopher Fernando Savater, ¡Basta Ya! coordinator and spokesman Carlos Martínez Gorriarán and former Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) MEP Rosa Díez. Díez resigned her PSOE membership and her MEP position in August 2007 to become involved with the UPyD project. Groups supporting Plataforma Pro included Citizens of Catalonia (notably Albert Boadella, Arcadi Espada and Xavier Pericay) and ¡Basta Ya!, a major influence on the new movement. In September 2007, Forum Ermua president Mikel Buesa announced their intention to participate in the political party arising from Plataforma Pro; he resigned in 2009 due to disagreements with Rosa Díez.

At a 29 September 2007 meeting in the auditorium of the Casa de Campo in Madrid, the new party was formed. Participants in its formation included Catalan dramatist Albert Boadella, Basque philosopher Fernando Savater, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa and Rosa Díez. Also present were journalist Arcadi Espada, anthropologists Teresa Giménez Barbat and Felix Perez Romera (three prominent Citizens of Catalonia members), historian Antonio Elorza, painter Agustín Ibarrola, former Forum Ermua leader Mikel Buesa, philosopher Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, Citizens deputies Albert Rivera and Antonio Robles, Peruvian writer Fernando Iwasaki, former UGT secretary general Nicolas Redondo and People's Party Basque MP Fernando Maura. Maura joined the new party's advisory council on 6 November 2007. Writer Álvaro Pombo later expressed support for UPyD, running as a candidate for the party.

Ideology

Ideologically, UPyD is not defined by itself as either left or right and its constituency includes voters with an affinity for the political right as well as part of the Socialist Party's disenchanted voters. When UPyD is asked to be placed on the left–right political spectrum, it defines itself as "a progressive party that is simultaneously positioned on the political centre and cross-sectionalism, thus embracing ideas across the political spectrum". According to spokesperson Rosa Díez, the party is "progressive and cross-sectional: it's got leftist people and right-wing, liberal people". Other additional identity signs are "constitutionalism", defining it as the upholding of the Spanish state of law under the Spanish Constitution of 1978; "secularism", defining it as the defence of a religiously neutral state in which a religious confession isn't privileged over others; "liberal democracy", defining it as the form of government which best balances power and individual rights; "pro-Europeanism", defining it as the desire to move towards a real European federalism with the concept of citizenship as a fundamental pillar; "Spanish patriotism", defining it as the defence of common values: justice, freedom and equality; and "non-nationalism", defining it as the opposition to compulsory nationalism. Rosa Díez defined UPyD, in opposition to Spain's peripheral nationalist and pro-independence parties, as "an unequivocally national party, with a unique agenda for Spain". According to Rosa Díez, "social liberalism" is the political doctrine which UPyD is identified with because the party combines elements of "political liberalism" and "social democracy". Furthermore, Rosa Díez said that UPyD is "a radical party which wants to transform politics by bringing off substantial, in-depth changes from within institutions". Also, Miguel Zarranz, UPyD's coordinator in Navarre, has clarified that UPyD is "a partially centralist party because it wants to centralize powers such as education, health, water resource management or transport management within a symmetric federal state with other decentralized responsibilities in the autonomous communities". Lastly, Álvaro Anchuelo commented that UPyD is "a monarchist party insofar as the monarchy fulfils its function".

UPyD has been assessed by the vast majority of political scientists and the media such as the European Social Survey, The Financial Times and The Economist as a centre party, even though it was considered as centre-left by the political scientist Donatella Maria Viola and centre-right by the Encyclopædia Britannica. Also, the self-proclaimed cross-sectionalism of UPyD has been linked to radical centrism.

UPyD is a progressive party which combines social liberalism with centralism from the centre of the political spectrum. UPyD is a centralist party which stands out for being the only statewide party that actively defends the abolition of chartered regimes in all Spain, even in those regions which have them: Navarre and the Basque Country. Similarly, UPyD argues that the extreme political decentralization of the State of Autonomies has weakened the welfare state and created inequalities across the territory. Accordingly, UPyD wants to adopt a symmetric federalism that entails a high degree of political centralization in Spain.

UPyD wholeheartedly defends the unity of Spain, thereby being an enemy of peripheral nationalism. The magenta party is an advocate for the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation so unconditional that supports the application of the Article 155 of Spain's Constitution so as to suspend Catalonia's home rule, and the prosecution of Catalan separatist leaders for rebellion and sedition. Although UPyD is a progressive party strongly characterized by its rejection of peripheral nationalism, it also has objections to nation-state nationalism, including Spanish nationalism, because the party considers this kind of nationalism to be a threat to the progress of Europe's unity. UPyD is the most pro-European party in Spain and therefore supports a federal Europe, which the magenta party sees as an important guarantor of individual rights.

Considering only outside sources, the distinguishing signs of UPyD are: progressivism, social liberalism, secularism, centralism, reformism, constitutionalism, European federalism, radical centrism, monarchism, Spanish patriotism and anti-nationalism.

Policies

Party proposals are:

1. Reform of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, focusing on three areas:
2. Doing away with the Spanish autonomic state. UPyD wants Spain to adopt a system of symmetric federalism with broad political centralization as a territorial model, clearly defining in the Constitution which powers are exclusive of the State and which ones are transferable to autonomous communities or municipalities. The party wants to centralize competences that concern citizens' fundamental rights like education, health and justice among others because the State of Autonomies, besides creating nationwide inequalities, is considered to be "elephantine, politically unviable and economically unsustainable". Another aspect of UPyD's symmetric federalism is the abolition of Navarre's and the Basque Country's chartered regimes, establishing a common system of funding for all autonomous communities. Other noteworthy proposals are municipal mergers so that municipalities have a minimum dimension of 20,000 inhabitants, the suppression of the provincial councils (diputaciones provinciales), chartered councils (diputaciones forales), Basque General Assemblies (Juntas Generales vascas) and district councils (comarcas), and the unicameralism of the Spanish General Courts after eliminating the Senate.
3. Improvement and reinforcement of individual rights and obligations, strictly defined for all Spanish citizens without territorial, linguistic, ideological or religious inequalities. By advocating a unitary and centralizing concept of the Spanish nation, UPyD defends the unity of Spain as "a key instrument to ensure the equality of the whole of the Spanish citizenry".
4. Deepening of the separation of powers, increasing judicial autonomy to ensure the independence of the Constitutional Court, the Court of Accounts and economic regulatory bodies from the executive.
5. By turning Spain into a secular state, the party supports a revision of existing agreements with the Holy See, the self-financing of the Catholic Church and other religious confessions and the total separation of church and state. Secularity for UPyD "consists in respecting only religions which are compatible with human rights, the state of law and democracy", so that the magenta party decries Islam because of "Islamic religious leaders' defence of adulterous women's stoning and homosexuals' murder". Following this line of thought, the party supports the banning of Islamic headscarves (from burqa to hijab) in public spaces because they are considered to be "a way to subjugate women to men within Islam".
6. Reform of the Organic Act of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) with 3 hopes: achieving voters' equality, regardless of residence; increasing the minority-party representation, underrepresented with today's electoral system compared to the majority-party one; and reducing regionalist and peripheral nationalist parties' representation. This reform raises biproportional apportionment of 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies. Of the 350 MPs, one would be elected from each province and one from each autonomous city for a total of 52 and the remaining 298 MPs would be elected by provinces, redeployed in proportion to the population, using the Sainte-Laguë method. But, the allocation of seats to parties would be based on the votes obtained in the 52 constituencies so that a party which has fewer votes than another can't receive more seats than that one. Firstly, the value of r-parameter, equivalent to 0.25% of the total valid votes, would be calculated. Secondly, r votes would be subtracted from those parties which have passed r votes, getting the reduced votes for each party; however, parties that hadn't reached r votes would be removed from the allocation of seats. Thirdly, using the D'Hondt method, 325 seats would be allocated proportionally to the reduced votes while the remaining 25 would be assigned according to the square of the reduced ones so as to achieve equity in parties' representation and compatible proportionality and governance. Finally, BAZI computer program, developed at the University of Augsburg, would be used to distribute the seats won by each party in the 52 constituencies.
7. Improvements in education, establishing a secular public education system in which scientific investigation is strengthened and language discrimination is eradicated. UPyD vituperates against compulsory language immersion in autonomous communities with more than one official language, thereby defending the freedom to choose the language in the enrolment of all nonlinguistic subjects and ensuring bilingualism by being the study of not only the Spanish language but also the regional language compulsory. The party opposes language discrimination in all public services.
8. Changes in the democratic system: eliminating the requirement for extra-parliamentary parties to receive 0.1 percent of their constituencies' electorate, an open list electoral system, the direct election of mayors in a two-round system preventing post-election agreements misrepresenting the citizens' will, a limit of two successive full terms for executive public officeholders, banning the combination of two (or more) public offices and reducing former high officeholders' conflicts of interest. The party suggests making political parties' funding more transparent, increasing their independence from economic interests.
9. Measures to tackle terrorism that put emphasis on defeating ETA, closing its funding channels and blocking its political justification. Consequently, UPyD wants to toughen the law on parties in order to outlaw the political parties which form part of the EH Bildu coalition (Alternatiba, Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna and Sortu) because they're considered to be ETA's political arm. The magenta party puts forward that these parties don't condemn ETA's terrorism and even justify ETA's killings, for example, calling ETA's imprisoned members "jailed politicians".
10. Economic and social measures promoting economic development and correcting inequalities. The state should improve workers' education, training and safety, integrate internal markets with infrastructure, favour research and innovation in business and guarantee economic freedom and competition.
11. Regarding immigration, UPyD wish to transfer immigration policy to the European Union as an exclusive competence because it affects the whole of Europe. Therefore, the party asks the European Commission for the inclusion of Ceuta and Melilla in the European customs area as full-fledged territories and, hence, external borders of the European Union. UPyD states that controlled immigration is good and necessary for Europe because of its demographic ageing and advocates a common immigration policy with strict respect for international law and human rights that entails a European action protocol to contain illegal immigration. Although the magenta party supports greater immigration control by arguing that Ceuta's and Melilla's Spanish border fences must be protected, illegal immigrants must be treated sensitively and humanely. The party believes that the Civil Guard should stop illegal immigrants and legally repatriate them to their country of origin or return them to the country which they entered from without violating their human rights, thereby banning deterrents like firing rubber bullets and the use of razor wires. UPyD is favourable to earmark financial resources for promoting democracy in countries where there is no democracy and even to intervene militarily if financial resources are insufficient "to defend and protect human rights and thus no one has to leave those countries".
12. Environmental policy which makes technological and economic development compatible with environmental and biodiversity protection. Some measures are: nuclear power as an essential part of the energy mix that, together with renewable energy and hydraulic fracturing, Spain should have, the scientific research of climate change and its possible corrective measures, and a toughening of laws on the protection of natural areas by opposing the loss of coastline and sensitive natural areas due to urbanization and other misuses.
13. Concerning abortion, UPyD favours an abortion law that decriminalizes induced abortion until a fourteen-week provisional period in which any woman can freely abort. The definitive time limit would be established by a medical and scientific consensus based on the early detection of possible malformations. Beyond that gestational limit, UPyD would only allow abortion in cases of "the foetus's nonviability after birth" and "risk of the mother's death" with the aim of reconciling the mother's right to a consenting maternity with the unborn person's legal protection. However, from party's point of view, abortion is always "a drama" and its regulation as a right, instead of its decriminalization under certain circumstances, is incompatible with Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution, which applies to the unborn according to the Constitutional Court's jurisprudence. Therefore, the magenta party supports an early sex education within secondary education giving students information about all available contraceptive methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies and, simultaneously, fostering the notion that abortion has to be avoided as much as possible. Finally, UPyD opposes abortion access by minors without parental consent.

Funding

Shortly after the party's creation, on 13 December 2007, UPyD held a press conference headed by Rosa Díez, Mikel Buesa, and Fernando Savater at which it denounced "evidently unequal" treatment by Spanish banks, which denied the party loans while forgiving debts held by the other political parties. Although party activity was funded by membership fees and small donations, it "could not continue this way" or contest an election with such meager resources. Therefore, the party leadership decided to offer €200, €500 and €1,000 bonds to fund the party's campaign for the 2008 general elections. The bonds, totaling €3 million–€5 million, were sold at party offices, on the internet and over a toll-free phone line. The party pledged to report the amount of the loans obtained and the state of its accounts, and intended to repay the money after the elections with institutional funding for parties with parliamentary representation.

Elections

The party's national spokesperson, Rosa Díez, won a seat in the general election of 2008 from Madrid Province with 3.74 percent of the vote. Other prominent candidates were writer Álvaro Pombo (for the Senate) and Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, both of whom failed to win seats.

In 2009, the party gained representation in the European Parliamentary election and the Basque Regional Elections. Their MEP, Francisco Sosa Wagner, sat in the non-aligned group in the European parliament. In the Basque elections, Gorka Maneiro was elected to represent Álava.

In 2011, Luis de Velasco Rami and 7 other UPyD members were elected to the Madrid Assembly, with UPyD becoming the fourth-largest party. In the 2011 local elections, the party won seats in Madrid, Burgos, Ávila, Granada, Alicante and Murcia. UPyD received the fourth-largest number of votes in the 2011 general election: 1,143,225, or 4.70 percent. Of the five seats won, four (held by Rosa Díez, Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, Álvaro Anchuelo and Irene Lozano) were in Madrid; actor Toni Cantó was elected in Valencia Province.

In the 2014 European Parliament Elections, Francisco Sosa Wagner was re-elected, and UPyD won three extra seats (for Maite Pagazaurtundúa, Fernando Maura and Beatriz Becerra), consolidating their support nationwide. The party's MEPs planned to join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group.

Criticism

In July 2009, party co-founder Mikel Buesa announced his resignation from UPyD, denouncing "authoritarian control" imposed by a group in the party. After its First Party Congress in November 2009, 100 UPyD critics (including four founding members) left the party, "tired and disappointed" with the "authoritarian" Rosa Díez and the party's "lack of internal democracy". By early 2010, the party lost 40 percent of its membership in Catalonia, amid allegations that the party was a fraud.