Spain ready for a liberal alternative, says EU poll candidate[fr][de] 

Launched in September 2008 with the intention of grabbing seats in the European elections, the party (CDL) is trying to portray itself as a centrist political party which will inject greater plurality into Spanish politics and re-engage people in political life. 

Stemming from the Centro Democratico e Social of Manuel Alonso, the party is well represented in local councils across the country, but has no representatives in the Spanish parliament yet. 

"When young people turn away from politics and democracy: that is a tragedy. It is not that they are not concerned about politics, but they just feel alienated from politics and the way politics is being conducted," said O'Curneen, noting that only 20% of Spaniards are members of civil society organisations, against 70% in the United States. 

Socialists and conservatives "have done nothing in thirty years of government to strengthen civil society and to encourage it," O'Curneen added, stressing that the CDL by its own presence will force the two main parties to be more citizen-friendly and infuse some "reasonable and sensible discourse in Spanish political debate". 

According to the Irish-Spanish national, the two big political parties have created a very unbalanced economic model, which relies excessively on tourism and the construction sectors. An increasing number of corruption cases, linked to construction, has swept the country in recent years, said O'Curneen, leading to an alarming disasters in urban planning. 

CDL's manifesto focuses on redressing this unbalance and giving a much greater role and say to small and medium-sized enterprises, researchers and innovators, while embarking Spain on a path to a low-carbon economy. 

"In a country as big as Spain, with the natural resources that it has, to be so dependent and not be able to produce [enough] energy supply from renewables (solar, wind, hydropower etc) is just madness," added O'Curneen, arguing that Spain was not even meeting its Kyoto targets, let alone the post-Kyoto targets. 

According to the Spaniard, some people question the need for a big liberal moderate party, given the failure of the centrist party, which ruled Spain for over a decade after the referendum that ousted Franco in 1977.

"Even people who desire a party like this […], they think it is impossible. For them, Spain is a lost cause," said O'Curneen, who prefers to dismiss the defeatism reigning in the country and look at the inspiring episodes of Spanish history, The first use of the word 'liberal' came from Spain, and the very first liberal constitution was in 1812 in Cadiz, said the politician. 

The CDL is aiming to gain ground in Spain at the European elections. O'Curneen deplores the manner in which the two big parties perceive and treat the European institutions, describing it as a "real disservice to the people of Spain". 

"So many solutions to the problems of Spain have come from the European Union. The list is endless, but you can start with two big things. The European Union is a guarantee for Spain's democratic stability, a guarantee for Spain's economic progress," he stressed.

To read the interview in full, please click here.