Hi everyone! Welcome to Spain 2.0, it’s only 1 day to go and the Personal Democracy Forum Europe will begin. With this entry I will talk about the situation of Personal Democracy in Spain, covering the relevant laws, the Spanish Government ministries that touch on the subject, then through the Parliament and finally I will talk about the different Regions.

The right of access to public information is a human right recognized by international law and numerous constitutions and national laws anywhere in the world. Nevertheless, of the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe Spain is one of the few countries (9) that do not have a law of access to personal data information along with Russia, Greece, San Marino, Monaco, Andorra, Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg. In a true democracy authentic participation on the part of the citizen is only possible if one can access in equality of conditions to all type of information that is in the power of any public authority or of any private organization that has public functions. The best tool to guarantee the total recognition and exercise of this right is the existence of a specific law of access to information. Some Countries had developed institutes to protect this, like Mexico where the Federal Institute of Access to Public Information (IFAI) is an organism of the federal executive authority in the country, with budgetary autonomy and of decision. Its job is to guarantee the right of access to governmental public information, to protect the personal data that are in the hands of federal government and to solve on the refusals of access to the information that the dependencies or organizations of the federal government have formulated. Since the entrance in force of the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to the Governmental Public Information the 12 of June of 2003, more than 230 dependencies and organizations of the federal government have the obligation to attend the requests of information under the monitoring of the IFAI. The IFAI promoted the reception of these requests through Internet.
Spain has one of the toughest data protection laws. It looks to give a good treatment to the personal data to guarantee the privacy of the citizens it doesn’t matter where the information comes from. The sanctions for violating the law have three levels: slight that goes from 601 to 60.101 euros, serious from 60.101 to 300.506 euros and very serious from 300.506 euros. In the last year 39 cases of Data Protection has been applied to electronic communication and spam. To publish something personal about someone online, in newspapers or in TV you must have an unequivocal if the person is mentioned, it must be express on a written consent if it is about the person’s political or sexual behaviour and needs express guidance if it is on his race or religion and express in writing about cases of sex and ideological. Some Health centres have been sanctioned because they interchanged medical data information of the patients without its express consent.

Of the Central Spanish Government information on social networks we only see 3 of the 15 ministries with a blog, Facebook and a Ministry web page. Other 7 only have two, a Ministry webpage and Facebook or a Blog. While the last Ministries only have the main webpage. But let’s see closer to the action in social networks.

First the Ministry of Transportation and Urban Development. This Ministry has a Facebook page with 66 fans. José Blanco, the minister, show us in his page his work experience at the Spanish administration. On the other hand in his Blog (he has two blogs, the first one in Blogspot, the oldest, have a link to the new one) “El Cuaderno de Pepe Blanco” (Pepe`s Notebook) where he writes day about the political reality of Spain.

The Ministry of Equality (This ministry works on the equality between men and women) is one of the best represented on social networks, compared with the other ministries. “Amanece en Càdiz” (Dawn in Cadiz) is the name of its blog; entries are about the hard work of the

Administration to make an equal treatment of the men’s and women’s work. 538.092 visitors have made comments on the blog since it started. On Facebook Bibiana Aido (the equality minister) has 1,512 fans.Bibiana`s page gives almost the same information that we find in her blog, the ministry work and project with the difference that here we may post a comment or we may begin a discussion about gender equality.

The minister of the Presidential Office, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, will not be found on social networks unless we look at groups in favour or against her. What the Ministry of the President has done is very different from the work of the others ministries. The one in charge is the communication department the Moncloa (The equivalent to the White House).

The blog is like a ministerial page where we find information about the central government actions, where we may download documents or make a petition to the Ministry like the e-petitions on the number 10 (page of the PM Gordon Brown).

This ministry is the only one on Twitter so far. The tweets of this Ministry give us information of what the Government President, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, is doing almost in real time. What is he writing about, if he is gong to meet another Prime Minister or President, or if he is giving a speech the website also includes links to press articles.

Carmen Chacon, the minister of Defence, has on Facebook about 3,800 fans; She has a special space where we can debate about the administration actions.

The Spanish MP are more active in the politics 2.0 than government ministers. There are more than 75 MP blogging from the congress of the deputies. (You may see all 75 links in the Congress Main Page. From this list we see that the leading party is the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), who is in charge now of the Government, with 40 members, in second places the PP (Popular Party) with 28. The REST OF THE MP that are in active are from CiU(Union and Convergence, Catalonian Party), UPyD (Union, Progress and Democracy) and the PNV (National Basque Party) The MP’s blogs often link to each party and talk about the country in terms of popular interests , social movements etc. There are even MP’s blogs that have held contests of speeches with the prize being that the winning speech would be read in the party congress.

Although the Socialist MPs has more personal blogs the Popular Party’s MPs have a bigger presence in social networks in terms of friends in Facebook

Some Spanish MPs are beginning to understand the power of the social networks, but the MPs that are trying them are not having a big impact yet.
Facebook is the most used by Spanish MP Soraya Saenz de Santamaría (PP) with 12,840 friends, Esteban Gonzalez Pons (PP) with 4,420 friends, Javier Arenas Bocanegra with 2,536 friends, and Maria Dolores de Cospedal (PP) with their content is almost the same: they share photos, videos, comments on press articles, and present their party initiatives.

Mariano Rajoy (MP and national leader of the PP) is the one politician who is doing the best in the 2.0 politics. In Facebook he has near 16, 000 friends and shows all the party activity using Youtube. But the most interesting thing about Rajoy`s work in the social networks is his blog Rajoy en Acciòn (Rajoy into action).In Rajoy en Acciòn, Rajoy shows in video his ability to connect with Spanish needs.

Rosa Diez (MP and leader of Progress and Democracy Party) has also a good presence in social networks that have helped to give an impulse in the Party grown. The 4,983 friends in Facebook and a personal blog are the hidden weapons that Rosa Diez is using to uplift a party created in 2008 and that little by little are gaining traction in Spanish politics.

The presidents of the Regions in Spain (which are kind of like states from the United States) use also the social network formula. From the 17 Presidents of the Regions, 5 have a good presence in social networks, those are:
Esperanza Aguirre (president of Madrid) that has 12,900 friends, Jose Maria Barreda (president of Castile and La Mancha )with 785 fans, Guillermo Fernandez Vara(president of Extremadura) with 1964 friends, Alberto Nuñez Feijoo (president of Galicia) has 1100 friends .
Patxi Lopez the Basque lehendakari (governor) is the same of active as Esperanza Aguirre with twitter and it is the only one that has a legit has more than 2 years, born in October of 2008 the Lehendakari Lopez promotes the Basque culture like in a post where he cheers up a local rock band to won the MTV prize. Inhis blog you may fond information of the campaign and about all the work that he has done during his administration, download government photos; check out the latest cultural and politic news.

Finally José Montilla, the president of Catalonia, the Region where PDF Europe will have place, has a very good presence on Internet with 2,220 friends in facebook and a blog where he talks about politics and personal interests. He even has a video where he makes a special description about his personality saying thing like “Soc mès persona de fets que de paraules em sento un treballador de la polìtica” (I’m more a person of facts than words, I work for the politic).

Politics 2.0 is getting stronger in Spain. On the Parliament’s website there will appear a registry in which MPs deposit their declarations of extra-parliamentary activities connecting with the public so people know what they’re doing. The president of the Parliament, Jose Bono, announced that " in the very near future " he will be guarantee through the Parliament’s website, " total access" to the Registry of Interests of the House of Representatives in which the deputies deposit their declarations of activities, those documents in which, among other things, specifies the activities that the MP do at the margin of the Parliament (informing how does the MP patrimony and how it grows during the administration). This represents an important beginning towards greater political transparency in Spain.