Galiza
(in Galician: Galiza)
Area : 29 434 km²
Population : 2 825 020 inhabitants (1995)
Languages : Galician; Spanish
- Galician is spoken by 70% and understood by 95% of
Galicians everyday
- The language is teached at both primary and secondary school
levels
- It is the minority language the most spoken by the autochtonous
Spaniards
- Galician and Portuguese are two co-dialects forming the "galego-português"
linguistic group
- There is newspaper "O Correo Galego" and a weekly
magazine "A Nosa Terra" both in Galician. Other
newspapers have some articles in Galician. There is a 100%
Galician public TV channel : Televisón de Galicia (TVG)
- Galician litterature re-appeared, after four centuries of
silence, in the nineteenth century. Today the litterature is very
rich, and is translated in French, English and Italian (along
with Spanish).
The Galician language is also traditionnaly spoken out of Galicia in : Asturies (Terra Eo-Navia), León (Baixo Bierzo), Zamora (As Portelas), Extremadura (Serra de Xalma). That makes a total of 65 000 Galician speakers out of Galicia.
Capital : Santiago de Compostela
Political status : Autonomous Community of Spain since 1981
Parliament (19-OCT-1997) : 75 members (41 Partido Popular, 15
PSOE, 19 BNG)
Independentist movement : Bloque Nacionalista Galego (Galician Nationalist Bloc) ;
I do not think they have a big similarity with the Scottish
National Party nor any of the other nationalist parties in Spain.
The links with Herri Batasuna [Basque party linked to ETA] were
bigger in the past, just after the death of dictator Franco, in
the late 70s early 80s.
Now, they don't have that relationship with them and they have
always shown their opposition -since the early 80s- to ETA's
terrorist acts.
They are a centre-left wing party. In the begin they were a
radical left wing party, but they have adopted a more centrist
ideology as the years past by. So we could say they are a big
party were you find some different ideologies, but with a quite
complete political program and without internal problems.
Their objective is to get a bigger political autonomy inside
Spain and to reach, always with peoples' support, a total
independence. They are against the economical situation of miss
care that we suffer inside Spain and the EU and they want to
change some aspects of the linguistic policy held by the actual
Xunta [Galician Government].
They are the second biggest political party in Galicia and they
keep growing. They have an increasing growth and surely they will
become the major political party in Galicia briefly. But due to
the peculiar actitude of Galician people to the politics it is
quite hard to explain all the fuss we have here.
In the Spanish parliament they have two elected members who last
week was know they were the MP´s that more propositions had
shown.
They will probably get political representation in the European
Parliament next June.
The leader X.M.H Beiras is the economical science cathedratic in
Santiago's University. All the members in the Galician parliament
have at least University studies.
FPG (more radical)
Regionalist movement : none
Some other links with Galician politics are: Revolutionary Celts,
Galiza
Livre - Free Galiza, and http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/8275/.
Or ask by e-mail at this
address. If you want to find more about independentist groups,
go to Altavista (ex) and write "Galiza Livre" or "Galiza
Ceibe".
It's all for now, thank you for having visited my page. Have a
good time and...
Long Live Europe of the regions.
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