The Senate (Spanish: Senado) is the upper house of Spain's parliament, the Cortes Generales. It is made up of 266 members: 208 elected by popular vote, and 58 appointed by the regional legislatures. All senators serve four-year terms, though regional legislatures may recall their appointees at any time.
The last election was held on 20 December 2015. The composition of the 11th Senate, which cannot serve beyond 2020, is:
History
The Spanish senate was instituted by the constitution of 1837 under the regency of Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies. It remained under the regimes of the constitutions of 1845, 1856, 1869 and 1876. It was composed, at that latter time, of three main categories: senators by their own right, senators for life and senators elected. This chamber was suppressed after the coup of General Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1923.
Only after the Spanish transition to democracy in 1978 was it re-instituted.
Organization
Senators form groups along party lines. Parties with fewer than ten senators form the Mixed Group. If the membership of an existing group falls below six during a session, it is merged into the Mixed Group at the next session. For example, Coalición Canaria lost its senate caucus in 2008 after electoral losses reduced its group from six to two. The Basque Nationalist Party, falling from seven to four, "borrowed" senators from the ruling Socialist Party to form their group; in exchange, they supported the election of socialist Javier Rojo as President of the Senate. The PNV group is again under threshold after returning the borrowed Socialists, and it faces dissolution after the current session.
Spain is a poem by W. H. Auden written after his visit to the Spanish Civil War and regarded by some as one of the most important literary works in English to emerge from that war. It was written and published in 1937.
Auden published two versions of the poem, first as a pamphlet Spain (1937), then, in revised form and titled "Spain 1937", in his book Another Time (1940). He later rejected the poem from his collected editions, regarding it as a "dishonest" poem that expressed political views that he never believed but which he thought would be rhetorically effective.
The poem describes the history that led up to the Spanish Civil War, then the arrival of the International Brigades at the war itself, then foresees a possible future that may result from the war.
The poem was widely discussed, notably by George Orwell in "Inside the Whale" (1940) and in E. P. Thompson's reply to Orwell, "Outside the Whale" (Out of Apathy, 1960).
Quotations
References
Australian rules football is played in Europe at an amateur level in a large number of countries. The oldest and largest leagues are those in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, each nation having a number of clubs, organised junior programs and women's football. The British AFL has now dramatically expanded into the Welsh, Scottish and English leagues. The Danish AFL has been responsible for the expansion of Australian Football into Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway. The governing body for Australian Football in Europe was founded in Frankfurt in January 2010; the body was initially called the European Australian Football Association, but changed its name to AFL Europe at a general assembly meeting in Milan in October of the same year. It currently has 19 member nations. AFL Europe, with backing of the AFL in Australia has overseen a large improvement in the organisation of Australian football in Europe.
The sport has grown from a few clubs and leagues started mainly by expatriate Australians and returning nationals in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to now having established leagues in over 15 nations, with the majority of players being non-Australian.
Spain is a European country.
Spain may also refer to: