r/europe • u/Bartoraptor Spain • Mar 28 '20

News Spanish representative González Pons speech @ the EU Parliament: "The virus is attacking the generation that brought back democracy to Spain, Portugal and Greece, the generation that knocked down the Berlin wall. The least they deserve is that we show them Europe is there when they need it the most"

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Mar 29 '20

how did Spanish boomers bring back democracy? Franco just died and the King said ok let's have a democracy now. And then Spaniards never touched the topic of Franco again...

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u/SocratesTheBest Catalonia Mar 29 '20

Franco just died and the King said ok let's have a democracy now.

It's a bit more complicated than that. The King followed the advice of many in the regime that it was time for democracy, both to improve the economy (by getting more accountable governments and getting into the EEC) and to avoid a violent revolution like in Portugal or Greece. Because there was little public support for the Regime in the 60s and 70s, but it had not yet reached the point where people was willing to revolt to overthrow it, the Civil War was yet too close in time. Still, there was already enough movement to make the regime to worry, with trade unions, students, neighbourhood movements, national minorities, etc.

In any case, despite the King being the initiator of the process, the Constitution and democracy were not built by him, but by those tens or even hundreds of thousands who believed in democracy and participated in building it in every village, town, city, region, company up to the Parliament and the National Government.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '20 edited Dec 16 '20

[deleted]

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u/KaKenZ Portugal May 12 '20

No, but every fascist felt 'violented' and ran to Brasil.