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UPyD
Union, Progress and Democracy (Unión, Progreso y Democracia ; according to its statutes, UPyD, although is also known as UPD ) is a Spanish political party with parliamentary representation. Among its promoters they stood: Rosa Diez, a former member of the PSOE; Mikel Buesa, professor and president of the Forum Ermua; and the philosophers Carlos Martínez Gorriarán and Fernando Savater. It has also received the support of the writer Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

It is a progressive and social liberal party, strongly characterized by its rejection of peripheral nationalisms such as the separatist Basque and Catalan movements. Although, it also has objections to nation-state nationalisms, including Spanish nationalism, due to its desire to transfer competencies from EU countries to the European Union so as to establish a federal Europe, whose institutions have got complete legislative powers and are under full democratic control. Mikel Buesa at a party's presentation in 2007 and Irene Lozano in a television interview in 2013 have explained the meaning of the 3 concepts which make up party's name: Union because of their unconditional defence of "the unity of Spain", Progress because they affirm to be "a progressive party, respectful of individual freedom" and Democracy because they claim to be "a radical party which is committed to deepen democracy".

Ideologically, it defines itself as progressive, social liberal, secular, radical, constitutionalist, pro-Europeanist and European federalist, cross-sectional, defender of liberal democracy, Spanish patriot and postnationalist.

It is a social liberal party that rejects peripheral nationalism in all its forms including the separatist Basque and Catalan movements. It proposes substituting the current electoral law for a more proportional one. The party also wants a federal system for Europe, without duplicities between the functions of the European government, the national one and the regional one.

UPyD first stood for election in the 2008 general election, held on 9 March. It received 303,246 votes, or 1.2% of the national total, and one seat in the Congress of Deputies for party co-founder Rosa Díez, becoming the newest party with national representation in Spain.

UPyD's core is in the Basque Autonomous Community, with roots in anti-ETA civic associations, yet it addresses a Spain-wide audience. Prominent members of the party include philosopher Fernando Savater, party founder and former PSOE MEP Rosa Díez, philosopher Carlos Martínez Gorriarán, and writer Álvaro Pombo.

At its Second Party Congress in November 2013, UPyD reported 6165 registered members, down from an all-time high of 6634 in 2011. In 2009, UPyD founded the think tank "Fundación Progreso y Democracia" (FPyD: Progress and Democracy Foundation) which has since been presided over by the party's spokesperson, Rosa Díez.

In the most recent general elections, held on 20 November 2011, the party won 1,143,225 votes (4.70%), winning five seats in the Congress of Deputies (four in Madrid and one in Valencia) and becoming the fourth largest political force in the country. It was also the party that experienced the greatest increase of votes compared to the previous general election.

Ideology
Ideologically, UPyD is not defined by itself as either left or right and in its electoral mass there are collected Socialist Party's disenchanted voters as well as voters with an affinity for the political right.

When UPyD is asked to be placed on the left–right political spectrum, it defines itself as a "progressive party, politically located on the centre" but it's simultaneously included in the called "transversalism": it's a party which embraces concepts and ideas of both political axes. According to its spokesperson Rosa Díez, the party is "progressive and cross-sectional", "it's got leftist people and right-wing, liberal people". Álvaro Anchuelo also commented that UPyD is a "monarchist party insofar as the monarchy fulfils its function". They assert as additional identity signs "constitutionalism", defining it as the upholding of the Spanish state of law under the Spanish Constitution of 1978; "secularism", as the defence of a neutral State with beliefs, in which any religious confession isn't privileged over others; "pro-Europeanism", as the support for a federal Europe, which is seen as an important guarantor of individual rights; "Spanish patriotism", as the defence of common values: justice, freedom and equality; "liberal democracy", as the form of government that best attunes wielding of power to safeguard of individual rights; and "postnationalism", as the opposition to peripheral nationalist and pro-independence parties of the Spanish political system. Rosa Díez defines UPyD in opposition to this kind of parties as "an unequivocally national party, with a unique project for Spain". Besides, she has pointed out that UPyD is "a radical party which wants to transform politics by bringing off substantial, in-depth changes from within the institutions". Lastly, Rosa Díez has detailed that the political doctrine which UPyD would best identify itself with is "social liberalism" because the party combines elements of "political liberalism" and "social democracy". UPyD has been rated by the vast majority of political scientists and media such as the European Social Survey or the British newspapers Financial Times and The Economist as a centre party. UPyD has exceptionally been located on the centre-left (for example, by Navarra confidencial ) and on the centre-right (by the Encyclopædia Britannica), though.

Policies
Its key proposals, according to its terminology, are:
 * 1) Reform of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, focusing on three areas:
 * 2) *Doing away with the autonomic Spanish model. UPyD wants Spain to adopt a system of symmetric federalism with a wide political centralization as territorial model, clearly defining which competences are unique of the State and which ones are delegated to the autonomous communities or municipalities. The party wants to centralize the competences that concern about citizens' fundamental rights like education, health and justice among others because it considers that the State of Autonomies is "elephantine", "politically unviable" and "economically unsustainable" and, above all, because it creates inequalities across the whole country. Another aspect of UPyD's symmetric federalism is the abolition of Navarra's and the Basque Country's chartered regimes, together with all historical rights, setting a common system of funding for all autonomous communities. At last, other noteworthy features are the suppression of the provincial councils and district councils, municipalities' merger and the elimination of the Senate.
 * 3) *Improvement and reinforcement of individual rights and obligations, strictly defining the same for all Spanish citizens, without territorial, linguistic, ideological or religious inequalities. "The unity of Spain" would be "the only instrument to ensure the equality of the whole of the Spanish citizenry".
 * 4) *Deepening of the separation of powers, widening the autonomy of the judicial power from the executive and legislature ones, thereby consolidating the judiciary unity in the country and trying to ensure the independence of the Constitutional Court, the Court of Accounts and regulatory organs with an economic nature from the executive power.
 * 5) By making Spain into a secular state, the magenta party supports a revision of the existing concordats with the Holy See, the self-financing of the Catholic Church and other religious confessions and the total separation between Church and State. UPyD only assures of its respect for "those religions which are compatible with human rights and the state of law", so the party despises Islam because of "women's stoning" or "homosexuals' murder". Accordingly, UPyD agrees with the banning of Islamic headscarves (burqa and hijab) in all public spaces because they're considered "a way to subjugate women to men within Islam".
 * 6) Reform of the electoral Law in order to try to achieve each voter's equality regardless of his residence place and, therefore, to increase minority parties' representation, which are underrepresented with today's electoral system compared with those which represent most Spanish citizens (PP and PSOE). In 2008, Rosa Díez submitted a bill related to amend the Organic Act of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) in the Congress of Deputies, which entailed increasing the MPs number from 350 to 400. From the total of 400 MPs, 1 would be elected per province and 1 per autonomous city, for a total of 52. Another 146 MPs would be elected by autonomous communities, distributed in proportion to the population thereof. The remaining 200 parliamentary members would be elected in a single national character constituency. Furthermore, it proposed the elimination of the requirement to collect 0.1% of the constituencies' electorate that nowadays the extra-parliamentary parties need to run for. Later, UPyD added Hare quota as replacement for D'Hondt method.
 * 7) Improvements in public education that, as well as promoting secularism and scientific investigation, eradicate language discrimination and ensure the language choice freedom of all nonlinguistic subjects at the autonomous communities which have got a co-official language. Nevertheless, UPyD guarantees bilingualism by being compulsory to learn the Spanish language and regional one through their corresponding subject of "Language and Literature". Apart from in education, they reject language discrimination dealing with the Administration and in all public services.
 * 8) Changes in the democratic system: an open-list electoral system, the direct election of mayors in a two-round system as a preventative against post-electoral pacts which misrepresent citizens' will, a limit of two successive full terms for executive public officeholders, the impossibility of combining two or more public offices and the toughening of former high officeholders' regime of incompatibilities. Moreover, the party suggests taking measures so as to make political parties' funding more transparent and therefore improve their independence from great economic powers.
 * 9) Proceedings to tackle terrorism that put the emphasis on defeating ETA or any other terrorist organization, pursuing its funding channels and censoring its political justification. Consequently, UPyD wants to toughen the law of parties to outlaw the "pro-ETA" political groups of Amaiur, Bildu, EH Bildu and Sortu because it considers they're ETA's political arm. It puts forward that they don't condemn ETA's terrorism and even justify it, for example, when ETA's imprisoned members are called "jailed politicians".
 * 10) Economic and social measures promoting the Spanish economy development and correcting inequalities. According to its view, the State should improve workers' education, training and safety, bring about the internal market integration through infrastructures, favour the research and innovation in businesses and guarantee the economic freedom and competition.
 * 11) Higher immigration control: UPyD argues that Ceuta’s and Melilla’s border fences have to be protected but treating illegal immigrants with sensitivity and humanity. The party believes that the Civil Guard should stop illegal immigrants and legally repatriate them to their origin countries or return them to the country which they entered from, without violating the human rights of thereof. So, it's against the use of razor wires and shooting rubber bullets as deterrents. It also asks the European Union for a European action protocol to bring illegal immigration to a halt as it affects the whole of Europe. Thus, it wants the European Commission to include Ceuta and Melilla at the European customs area so that the European Union can get definitely involved in the administration of European external borders in both cities. As regards Europe, UPyD would like to strengthen the European Union's territorial integration.
 * 12) Environmental policy measures that make the technological and economic development compatible with the environment and biodiversity protection. Some examples of these measures are: the use of nuclear energy as an important part of the energy mix which, together with renewable energies, Spain should have, the usage of hydraulic fracturing, the opposition to the coastline and sensitive natural areas destruction due to urbanization or other abusive misuses, the scientific research of climate change and its possible corrective measures and the improvement of the legislature on the natural areas protection.
 * 13) Regarding abortion, UPyD would bet for a Limits Law, it proposes to decriminalize induced abortion until a fourteen-week provisional period in which any woman can freely abort. The definitive limit would be established by a medical and scientific consensus based on the early detection of possible malformations. Beyond that period, UPyD only defends abortion in case of mother's death risk during pregnancy or childbirth with the aim of reconciling mother's right to a consenting maternity with unborn person's juridical protection. However, from party's point of view, abortion is always "a drama" and, hence, it mustn't be considered a positive right. Therefore, it believes that secondary education has to tackle this issue at sex education area since an early age, thereby informing students of all existing contraceptives methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies and fostering the notion that abortion should be avoided as much as possible. To conclude, UPyD stands against minors' access to abortion without parental consent.

Additional policies

 * Indefinite imprisonment
 * Prostitution.
 * Cannabis.
 * Suppression of temporary contracts and regulation of the indefinite single contract.
 * Closing of regional television channels.
 * Apropos of tauromachy, UPyD is against bullfights’ prohibition and it calls for the regulation of tauromachy as an exclusive competence of State to prevent autonomous communities from banning bullfighting traditions. Instead, UPyD doesn’t want bullfights to receive public aids or grants, opposing the declaration of tauromachy as cultural heritage and arguing that tauromachy’s future has to be decided by the Spanish society’s attendance or nonattendance at bullrings. Finally, it’s worth saying that UPyD voted for the abolition of the "Toro de la Vega" tournament in a Plural Left’s NLP.

Modificación de la Constitución para reformar la legislación penal española con el fin de imponer la prisión indefinida revisable para delitos de extrema gravedad como el de terrorismo. Se impondría un período mínimo de 30 a 35 años para que la pena en ejecución pudiese ser revisada por primera vez. En dicha revisión puede acordarse la libertad condicional o extinción de la pena si el preso obtuviere un pronóstico favorable e individualizado de reinserción social. Los presos que no lo obtuvieren seguirán en la cárcel sin poder acceder a la libertad mientras no haya un pronóstico favorable en un proceso de revisión ulterior. En casos extremos, un preso podría llegar a cumplir una sentencia de por vida.

Amend the Constitution to reform the Spanish penal legislation for the purpose of impose reviewable indefinite imprisonment for extremely serious crimes such as terrorism. A minimum period of 30 to 35 years would be imposed so that the penalty in progress can be reviewed for the first time. At the review, it would be agreed the parole or the annulment of the sentence if the offender obtained a favorable and individualized forecast for social reintegration. Prisoners who do not get it will remain in jail without access to freedom until they get a favorable forecast in a further process of review. In extreme cases, a prisoner could fulfill a life sentence.