Domestic policy UPyD advocated significant changes to the
democratic system, such as the abolition of the requirement for extraparliamentary parties to gather 0.1% of each constituency's electorate to stand in elections; the ban on sending election propaganda by post, either subsidised or not; the adoption of an open list
panachage system; and the direct election of mayors in a
two-round system to prevent post-election pacts from misrepresenting the citizens' will. UPyD's other measures for democracy regeneration were: a limit of two consecutive full terms for executive public office holders; a ban on combining two or more public offices; and the strengthening of the incompatibility regime for former high office holders as a way of reducing their potential conflicts of interest. The party also urged making political parties' funding more transparent and independent of business interests. The party advocated the improvement and reinforcement of
individual rights and
obligations, which were to be strictly defined for all Spaniards without territorial, linguistic, ideological, or religious inequalities. By advocating a
unitary and centralising concept of the Spanish nation, UPyD defended Spain's unity as "a key instrument to ensure the equality of all Spanish citizens". UPyD called for a stronger
separation of powers through greater judiciary autonomy from the legislature and the executive, thereby consolidating judicial unity across the country and fostering the independence of the
Constitutional Court,
Court of Accounts and economic regulators from the executive.
State model UPyD endorsed reforming the
Spanish Constitution of 1978 to dismantle the Spanish
State of Autonomies. UPyD wanted Spain to be a strong unitary state with stringent, symmetric political decentralisation, thereby defining in the Constitution which powers were exclusive to the state and which could be transferable to autonomous communities or municipalities. Arguing that the autonomous state not only created inequalities across the country but was also "elephantine, politically unviable and economically unsustainable", the party advocated centralising powers that affected citizens' fundamental rights such as education, health, justice, and taxation. UPyD's territorial model would have abolished
Navarre's and the
Basque Country's
fueros by creating a common financial structure for all autonomous communities. Other notable proposals were the following: the merging of municipalities to ensure that they had a minimum size of 20,000 inhabitants; the suppression of provincial councils, the Basque General Assemblies, charter councils, and district councils; and the
unicameralism of the Spanish
General Courts after eliminating the
Senate.
Electoral system The party advocated reforming the Organic Act of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) with three objectives: to achieve equality among voters regardless of their place of residence; to increase the representation of minority parties, which are under-represented compared to the majority parties in the current
electoral system; and to reduce the representation of regionalist and peripheral nationalist parties. The reform involved a biproportional distribution of 350 seats in the
Congress of Deputies. Of these, one seat would have been allocated to each
province and
autonomous city (52 seats in total). The
Sainte-Laguë method would have distributed the remaining 298 seats among the provinces according to their population. To ensure
proportional representation, the allocation of seats to parties would have been under the votes received in the sum of the 52 constituencies, thus preventing a party with fewer votes from winning more seats than a party with more votes. Firstly, the value of the r-parameter, 0.25% of the total valid votes, would have been calculated. Parties with fewer votes than the r-parameter would have been excluded from the seat allocation process. Next, the
D'Hondt method would have assigned 325 seats proportionally to the reduced votes and the remaining 25 seats based on the square of the reduced votes to "achieve fairness in party representation and make governance and proportionality compatible". Finally, the BAZI computer programme, developed at the University of Augsburg, would have distributed the seats won by each party in the 52 constituencies.
Terrorism UPyD supported
counterterrorist measures with the aim of defeating
ETA, such as cutting off its funding and impeding its political legitimacy. Consequently, UPyD proposed a stricter law on political parties, which would have outlawed all parties belonging to the
EH Bildu coalition (
Alternatiba,
Aralar,
Eusko Alkartasuna, and
Sortu) on the grounds that they were "an extension of ETA's political arm". The magenta party argued that these parties had not condemned ETA's terrorism and, in fact, had even justified ETA's killings. One example of this was the use of the term "political prisoners" to describe ETA's imprisoned members. The party also advocated the unconditional approval of specific budgetary allocations to strengthen the human and material resources of the
Spanish security forces and intelligence services so that they could fight against
Islamic terrorism under optimal conditions. Moreover, UPyD supported Spain's military deployment in
Syria to destroy the
Islamic State as part of a European resolution under the
United Nations' protection.
Justice UPyD supported reforming the
Spanish Penal Code to impose an
indefinite imprisonment sentence for crimes of the utmost gravity, having previously submitted this issue to a consultative referendum. The criminals condemned would have had the possibility of
parole or pardon after spending a minimum of 35 years in prison if they had received a favourable, individualised prognosis for social reintegration in a sentence review process.
Society UPyD endorsed
same-sex marriage and
same-sex couples' adoption, regarding homophobia as "utterly reprehensible" and contending that a traditional family was not "the only valid option". The magenta party favoured the regularisation of
surrogacy and voluntary
prostitution, and the legalization of
euthanasia coupled with
assisted suicide as a way of offering terminally ill people the option of dying without prolonged suffering. The party endorsed the decriminalisation of
cannabis, but would have maintained the prohibition of other illegal drugs.
Bullfighting The party supported
bullfighting as a national festival and advocated the exclusive competence of the state to regulate bullfighting to prevent the Spanish autonomous communities from banning bullfighting traditions. However, UPyD refused to recognise the
intangible cultural heritage status of bullfighting. The party also rejected providing grants-in-aid to bullfighting events at either the European or Spanish (local, regional and national) level, thereby making Spaniards responsible for determining the future of bullfights based on their attendance or non-attendance at
bullrings. Lastly, UPyD supported the abolition of the
Toro de la Vega tournament and the
Toro embolado.
Religion By making
Spain a
secular state, the party supported revising existing agreements with the Holy See, the self-financing of the
Catholic Church and other
religious confessions, and the complete
separation of church and state.
Secularism for UPyD consisted of "fair treatment of all legitimate religious beliefs, i.e., those compatible with
human rights, the
rule of law, and
democracy". UPyD stated that "
Islam isn't a legitimate religion because it establishes men's superiority over women, it doesn't even respect the right to be a nonbeliever, and above all, it rejects the essence of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is why Islam has its
declaration of human rights justifying the existence of practices such as adulterous women's stoning and homosexuals' murder through
Sharia law". Following this line of thought, the party supported the ban on Islamic headscarves (from the
burqa to the
hijab) in public spaces, since they are "a way to subjuge women to men within Islam".
Abortion UPyD supported a law decriminalising induced
abortion within the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy. Beyond that gestational period, UPyD would have only allowed abortions in cases of "foetal anomalies incompatible with life and the risk of the mother's death, thereby reconciling the mother's right to consent to maternity with the unborn's legal protection". According to the party, "abortion is always a drama because an embryo conceived by two people is a human being". Consequently, UPyD argued that regulating abortion as a right rather than decriminalising it under certain circumstances was not respectful of Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution, which applies to the unborn according to the Constitutional Court's jurisprudence. Therefore, the magenta party supported early sex education, which would have informed high school students about all available contraceptive methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies while encouraging them to steer clear of abortion as much as possible. Finally, UPyD opposed abortion access by minors without parental consent.
Economy As a
social liberal party, UPyD advocated a
free-market economy subject to necessary state interventions to eliminate
tax evasion, provide quality public goods or services and increase equity in
income distribution. Thus, the party proposed economic measures such as the reform of the
wealth tax to convert it into a tax on large fortunes, raising the minimum exemptions so that people with average wealth were not taxed and eliminating any mechanism that would have allowed
tax avoidance. UPyD endorsed granting the Department of Financial and Tax Inspection of the
Spanish Tax Agency the power to assess compliance with the qualifications for a company to be recognised as a
SICAV. This would have involved the Tax Agency issuing a binding report to the
National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) to prevent individuals and family groups from fraudulently taking advantage of the tax benefits associated with SICAVs by using them as an investment tool.
Education The party promoted the enhancement of
education through the implementation of a
secular public education system that strengthened scientific research and eradicated
linguistic discrimination. UPyD rejected compulsory
language immersion in autonomous communities with more than one official language, thereby defending the freedom to choose the language of instruction for all non-linguistic subjects and ensuring
bilingualism by making the regional language as well as Spanish two required subjects. The party also opposed linguistic discrimination in all public services.
Environment UPyD's
environmental policy sought to ensure the compatibility of technological and economic development with environmental and biodiversity protection. Some of UPyD's measures were the following: the use of
nuclear power as an essential part of Spain's energy mix, which would have also included
renewable energy and
hydraulic fracturing; the cessation of subsidies for
coal mining and the closure of cost-inefficient mines; scientific research into
climate change and its possible corrective measures; and the strengthening of legislation protecting natural areas to halt the loss of the coastline and sensitive natural areas due to
urbanisation and other misuses.
Foreign policy UPyD supported the creation of a political
constitution for the European Union in which EU member states transferred some powers, such as
energy policy,
fiscal policy,
foreign policy,
immigration,
security, and
defence, to the
European Parliament with the aim of establishing a
federal Europe, whose institutions would have had full legislative capacity. In addition, the magenta party favoured the abolition of the European Parliament's headquarters in Luxembourg and Strasbourg by concentrating all parliamentary activities in a single headquarters in
Brussels. Similarly, UPyD advocated abolishing the intergovernmental
European Council to promote the European Union's supranationality.
Immigration UPyD wished to transfer immigration policy to the
European Union as an exclusive competence. Accordingly, the magenta party asked the
European Commission to include
Ceuta and
Melilla as full-fledged territories in the
European customs area, thus making them part of the European Union's external borders. Therefore, UPyD wanted
Frontex to open delegations in both cities and strengthen the Smart Borders Plan. The party supported the creation of a European
green card, which would have provided legal immigrants with a joint residence and work permit in the European Union. UPyD stated that "controlled immigration is positive and necessary for
Europe because of its
demographic ageing" and called for a common immigration policy with strict respect for
international law and
human rights, which would have included not only admission and residence criteria for immigrants based on employment needs across the EU but also a European action protocol to keep
illegal immigration at bay. On one hand, the magenta party supported increased immigration control by asserting the pressing need to protect the
border fences in Ceuta and
Melilla. UPyD thought that the
Civil Guard should have stopped illegal immigrants and either repatriated them legally or returned them to the country from which they'd entered, without violating their human rights. Hence, UPyD rejected
pushbacks and sought to prohibit using
rubber bullets and
razor wires as deterrents. On the other hand, the party stood up for giving
asylum and humanitarian protection to people who fled from their nations because of armed conflicts, thereby implementing dissuasive sanctions on EU member states that refused to host refugees. Likewise, UPyD was favourable to allocating financial resources for democracy promotion in non-democratic countries and even endorsed military intervention if they were "insufficient to defend and protect
human rights and to ensure that no one had to leave these countries". Finally, the magenta party believed there should not be any discrimination when accepting immigrants or refugees in Europe. == Organization ==