(08/06/09) -

Portuguese Ponder Forming Federation with Spain

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – People in Spain and Portugal are divided on whether the two countries should unite and form a federation, according to a poll by Casus. 30.3 per cent of Spaniards and 39.9 per cent of Portuguese favour entering a federation.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – People in Spain and Portugal are divided on whether the two countries should unite and form a federation, according to a poll by Casus. 30.3 per cent of Spaniards and 39.9 per cent of Portuguese favour entering a federation.

Conversely, 30.5 per cent of respondents in Spain and 34.1 per cent in Portugal disagree with the idea of uniting both countries.

In Spain, the Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE) won the March 2008 legislative election, with 43.36 per cent of the vote and 169 seats in the lower house. PSOE leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has served as president of the government since April 2004.

In Portugal, the Socialist Party (PS) won the February 2005 parliamentary ballot, garnering 45.3 per cent of the vote and electing 121 lawmakers to the 230-seat Assembly of the Republic. Socialist leader Jose Socrates took over as prime minister in March.

In 2007, Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate Jose Saramago said that it was "inevitable" that Portugal would become a Spanish autonomous region like Catalonia or the Basque Country one day.

Mariano Fernández Enguita, a sociologist from the Universidad de Salamanca who conducted this study, declared: "The Portuguese have a love-hate relationship with regards to Spain—something similar to what happens to us Spaniards with the French."

Polling Data

Should Spain and Portugal unite to form a federation?

Source: CASUS (Centro de Análisis Sociales de la Universidad de Salamanca)
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 876 adults in Spain and Portugal, conducted in April and May 2009. Margin of error is 3.4 per cent.