NationStates Jolt Archive

( please tell me if you see anything wrong )
http://www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/history/images/spanish_flag2.jpg

General information
Population: 40,448,191
Population density: 88.39 /km²
Languages: Castilian Spanish (official) 74%, Catalan 17%, Galician 7%, Basque 2%, are official regionally
Total Area: 506,030 km2
Capital: Madrid
Religion: Roman Catholic 94%, other 6%
National anthem: La Marcha Real (The royal march)

Big cities (with over or close to 1 million citizens)
Madrid 5,603,285
Barcelona 4,667,136
Valencia 1,465,423
Sevilla 1,294,081
Málaga 1,019,292
Bilbao 946,829

Economy

GDP: $1.141 trillion
GDP growth rate: 3.4% per year
GDP per capita: 20,786 $
GDP per sector : agriculture: 8.4% industry: 35.1% services: 56.5%
Currency: Peseta (pts), 1 $ = 160 pts
Inflation: 3,6 %
Labour force :17,1 million
Unemployment rate: 7,6 %
Budget: Revenues: $440,9 billion, Expenses : $448,8 billion public debt: $970.7 billion
Biggest industries: metals and metal manufactures, textiles and apparel (including footwear), food and beverages, chemicals, shipbuilding, automobiles, machine tools, tourism
Agriculture - products: grain, vegetables, olives, wine grapes, sugar beets, citrus; beef, pork, poultry, dairy products; fish
Electricity production: 263.3 billion kWh

Government

conventional long form: Kingdom of Spain
conventional short form: Spain
local long form: Reino de España
local short form: España
Head of state: Rey(king) Juan Carlos I
Head of goverment: Primer Ministro Mariano Rajoy ( of the centre-right party Partido popular)
Government type: parliamentary monarchy
Administration: The kingdom of spain is a decentralizied state which is divided in to 17 autonomus regions
National holiday: National Day, 12 October (1492); year when Columbus first set foot in the Americas
Constitution: approved by legislature 31 October 1978; passed by referendum 6 December 1978, effective 29 December 1978
Elections: the monarchy is hereditary; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition is usually proposed Primer Ministro by the monarch and elected by the Las cortes generales
Parliament: Las Cortes Generales consists of the Senate or Senado (259 seats - 208 members directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 appointed by the regional legislatures to serve four-year terms) and the Congress of Deputies or Congreso de los Diputados (350 seats; members are elected by popular vote on block lists by proportional representation to serve four-year terms

Military (if u know anything more about the spanish army and its branches please tell me, since its a lill thin right now , will look up more on it later)

Military branches:Spanish Armed Forces: Army (Ejercito de Tierra), Spanish Navy (Armada Espanola, AE; includes Marine Corps), Spanish Air Force (Ejercito del Aire Espanola, EdA)

Military service age and obligation: 20 years of age

Manpower available for military service: males age 20-49: 7,623,356
females age 20-49: 7,434,465

Manpower reaching military service age annually:males age 18-49: 233,384
females age 20-49: 221,805

Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 1,2 %

History

After World War II, Spain was politically and economically isolated becuase of its fasisct leadership and their dictator Fransisco Franco and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when it became strategically important for the U.S. to establish a military presence on the Iberian peninsula. In the 1960s, Spain registered an unprecedented economic growth in what was called the Spanish miracle, which gradually transformed it into a modern industrial economy with a thriving tourism sector.Upon the death of General Franco in November 1975, his personally designated heir Prince Juan Carlos assumed the position of king and head of state. With the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, political autonomy were established. Despite the Decentralised state with its autonomus regions an organisation in the region Basqué, the Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) wanted more and had since the late 1950s made several terrorist actions to achieve their goal of a free socialistic Basqué state. The new spanish democracy continued the “spanish miracle” and gained more economic growth in the 80s as their low valued currency made them a strong trade nation wtih low prices with the drawback of a weakaned home market. So Spain took up the pursuit to try and “catch” up with their neighbours of the west.
Spain got their big breakthrough at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona which became a big succes for them and they finally noticed as one of the big countries in the world. Politcially the country was ruled for many years by the socialdemocratic party of Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) from 1978 all the way to 2004, which would become a very important year in Spain.on 11 of march 2004 several bombs exploded in commuter trains in Madrid killing over 200 people and injured almost 2,000. the PSOE Goverment were quick to blame an islamic terrorist organisation for this attack and not the ETA as the public thought.Anyway the Election for the Generales las Cortes (the parlamient) was held only 3 days after the attack and the PSOE lost the election to the right-centre party of Partido popular (PP) and many politicexperts think that the terroristattack lost the election for PSOE. The new and currently reiging goverment is being led by Mariano Rajoy and the goverment which strongly belives in catholic ideals and liberalistic values. Meaning a more effiecnt and slicker goverment which has sold out many state companies to boost their current economic situation which despite high GDP growth has been suffering lately from low produtivity and low investments since the fall of democratic France an issue the goverment are trying to resolve by faining more trader partners and investment deals. The new liberal goverment made sure Spain joined NATO in 2005 as assurrment of protection with the threats in the world and in spain itself.
In Foreign politics , the spanish goverment are willing to have good relations with all neutral and spanish speaking countries and the world (and of course its allies in NATO )

Diplomacy

Friendly
United States of America
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Federal Republic of Germany
Dominion of Canada
State of Israel
Commonwealth of Australia
United Kingdom of Korea
Democratic Republic of Sweden
Federal Norwegian Republic
Hellenic republic
The Democratic Liberation Armed Forces
Islamic Republic of Pakistan

Neutral
Republic of Indonesia
Imperial Republic of Japan
Glorious State of South Africa
Republic of India
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Federal Republic of Nigeria
People's Democratic Liberation Army
Fascist Reformed State of Nicaragua
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
People's Republic of Albania
The Federative Republic of Brazil
Persian Republic
Republic of Argentina
Republic of Chile
Arab Republic of Egypt
Irish Republican Army

Hostile
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
People's Republic of France (not officialy recognised)
Polish People's Republic
People's Republic of China
Republic of Cuba
German Democratic Republic
Worker's Republic of Mexico
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Great Socialist Libyan Peoples Arab Jamahiriyah

Hi,

Spain's prime minister is José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, from the center-left Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE).

The currency is the euro

Projects and concerns for modern Spain
major projects:
• as a big shipbuilding nation Spain is concentrating their military development and research on naval technology, trying to find ways of making ships more fuel efficent and cheaper to construct and maintain without losing their quality. This research is on both military and civilian ships , like merchant ships

• Other then military projects, The Government of Spain has given huge funds for agricultural research for more efficent and watersaving irrigation methods and rasing more warmresisting crops as drought is a serious concern occasionally in several Spanish region.

Major Concerns

• the military threat of the terrorist organisation Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA).Which has in their pursuit of a free and socialistic Basqué State taken military action to reach that goal and their most recent deed was the Madrid bombings. The government is though still lacking proof certain that the ETA is being sponsored byt the Warsaw pact.

• Enviromental issues is a serious problem for Spain and especcialy with the drought that has destroyed several crop harvets over the year and killed thousands of livestock. So the climat changes is a big concern when the tempereature is rising and the biggest fear in this issue that in the future Spain will turn in to a Desert.

• Surrounded by water in the most parts of the Country and these water borders have been hard to control from smuggling which has made cheap cocaine smuggling from North Africa a serious problem. This Cocaine is more deadly then others becuase of its poor quality and the drug use is going up for youth in all classes in the society and the Policia Nacional are currently fighting a losing battle as cheap cocaine keep pouring in to the country, but after the 2004 elections the border police has been reciveing more funding to deal with this problem.

• The rebellion and the upbringing of new communistic leadership in France, the “Peoples Republic of France” is currently the biggest Foreign and economical concern for Spain becuase the former Democratic Republic of France was Spains biggest trade partner and therefor Spain lost alot of Revenue Money when the export to France stopped which also led to many buisnesses went out of buisness and the unemployment rate rocketed. Also this “Peoples republic of France” has made the people of spain threatend that this will spread to some sort of rebellion in Spain led by the ETA. Right now a big border control is being built between the border of France and Spain for both defensive use and but mainly to try and halt the illegal immigration of People fleeing in to Spain. The Spanish Government has not Recogniesed the “Peoples Republic of France”.

Spain is now open for trading and diplomacy

Official Israeli Communique
The State of Israel would like to open an embassy in Madrid.
You can open an embassy in Tel Aviv in return.