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.

Tuesday October 6, Javier Pelaez (a blogger who is interested on science and has a blog that talks about it just as a hobby) asked in his Twitter profile how many persons would write in their blogs about the trim in the Spanish investment and development (I+D) budget. Some blogs began to mobilize themselves; hundreds of users began to support the cause using the social networks, and what began to as a simple tweet finished as a social group of real political pressure.

Last July 30th, soon after terrorist group ETA killed 2 young policemen in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), social networks began to mobilize against the killings.

If in previous attacks this kind of protest was mainly expressed through individual blogs, especially through people posting black ribbons on their pages and commentaries, after this new attack online social networks were full of different tweets, images and status posts.

During the last European Parliament elections in June, almost all different candidates around Europe turned to the Internet to engage voters in their own countries. The European Parliament didn´t want to be left out and launched a 2-2.5 millons euros three month internet campaign with the theme of “If you don´t vote don´t complain.” It was centered around websites like Ucount4EU, which featured information about the election and the roll that EP is playing in the lives of European citizens day to day; Can you hear me? in collaboration with MTV Networks International which focused on young Europeans ; and TellBarroso.eu where the President of the European Comission Durao Barroso asked for opinions about European challenges through an online poll.