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Senate passes a vote of no confidence in Spain's Development Minister
By m.p. - Dec 18, 2007 - 11:01 PM

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It was passed with the votes of the Partido Popular, who have a majority in the upper chamber of parliament

The Senate, the upper chamber in the Spanish parliament, has passed a vote of no confidence in the Development Minister, Magdalena Álvarez, over the problems on the railway service in Barcelona, where there were months of interruptions due to work to build the new AVE high speed rail line. The Minister recently survived a similar vote in the lower chamber, Congress, by just three votes.

Tuesday’s motion in the Senate was passed with just the votes of the 120 opposition Partido Popular Senators present in the chamber. The 96 Socialist Senators present, as would be expected, voted against, as did the 10 PSC Catalan Socialist Senators, seven from the PNV Basque Nationalists, and three from the Grupo Mixto.

There were 14 abstentions. Those came from the three Catalan political groupings in the upper chamber – CiU, ERC and ICV-EUiA – as well as Coalición Canaria and the Basque party, Eusko Alkartasuna. The Izquierda Unida left wing coalition, who presented the motion which was defeated in Congress, are not currently represented in the Senate.

The result of the vote, which was accompanied with calls from the PP for Magdalena Álvarez to resign, has no implications in law, and does not mean that any action will be taken against the Minister. The Partido Popular, who have a majority in the Senate, say, however, that, ethically, the Socialist government should ask for her resignation.

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