 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Spain is going through a spate of political protests by mostly the youth in various cities in the country. Even as the country is going through a financial crisis, it is still not recovered completely from the financial crisis. We have with us Marco Berlinger, a prominent journalist and a left-particle activist who is based out in Barcelona now and with whom we shall discuss this issue of the so-called indignates protests in Spain. Featuring youth protesting in droves by encamping in public places on squares, on municipal property and so on. Now is this a result of the severe unemployment problem where close to 20% of the workforce and even nearly 40% of the youth is unemployed and is this an anger against the mismanagement of the financial situation by the government? Yes, of course the basic conditions which created this movement are related with the crisis, particularly the crisis for the youth here and the absence of perspectives that young people perceive in a situation. But also other factors are heavily affected by the crisis. Here in particular it is very important the situation which affected many families about the crisis on their capacity to pay the mortgages and so they are suffering attempts to eviction and it is also very speculative the law that protects the banks compared with the clients etc. But there is a big problem of unemployment and of absence of perspective and also public cuts, public edges of cuts that are starting to affect component services and part of the welfare state in Spain. This is one part. I would say that the second part is a structure that is growing between society and political system. So that's another fundamental source of this movement and probably that is the most impressive character of this movement because this movement has been quite transversal in terms of political belonging. So people of left or center right both participated or sympathized with this movement exactly because of this trust they have with the political system and also because of this sense of exactly of indignation that they generated also because as we know now the financial crisis has been managed in a way which is scandalous now in terms of who is going to be saved and who is going to pay and that is something that created a sense of scandalous in all the populations. Here in Spain for some reason all these produce these very very interesting unexpected and impressive mobilization of the people. Right, so as you pointed out yourself one assessment of the protest is that it is a reflection of the disenchantment against the established two-party system where power alternates between the conservatives who are now in opposition and the socialists who have been in the helm through the economic crisis in Spain. Now is there a political alternative that is emerging out of the protest or is it emerging at all or what kind of political message is coming out from this protest? It's not easy to articulate the demands of this movement because it's very very dire in its composition and it came out without any organization. So these squares, crowds of people were impressive in terms of it gave you a sense of the original function of the squares in the old cities in the greeks times. In terms of where people meet and start to discuss about common issues but so at the beginning was also very difficult to systematize and to select the issues and to converge on the priorities etc. What I would say in general is that they are trying to articulate many different proposals and they systematized along this process different documents and they are mainly I would say working either with the reform of the political system trying to get a more democratic and representative and accountable political system and on the emergencies that as I said you for example the situation in the mortgages crisis and they are also intervening actively blocking the attempts to evict people from their home. So these are the most visible and the most advanced proposals and interventions. Then it's like if this movement opened a space where to rethink the society and the future because I would say that this is the sense that is common in the people the sense that one system is exhausted and the establishment is not able to provide solutions so we have to change but we have to develop a thinking and organization so it's a hard work and just at the beginning and there is this awareness of a kind of long-term work that has to be done in the future. Let's talk specifically of the you know the the political process in Spain as of now. Now you know in one sense you could say that the so-called left politics of social democracy in Spain is now threatened by the poor handling of the economy by the socialist party. Now so is Spain headed this Scandinavian way where you know the right has emerged as a major force in countries like Sweden. So despite the protests that are taking place with respect to the indigenous movement the popular perception is that the right the the PPP party is going to gain the conservatives is going to gain. So Spain is also headed the Scandinavian way in that sense could one make an assessment in that fashion. Yeah that's true and we exactly in the way of the energy of the movement we had the local election here in Spain and they have been won in an unprecedented way by the popular party so the right wing party. It won almost everywhere including the towns and regions where traditionally always govern the socialist party and so that's true what you say there is a kind of also of a paradox because in in some way you could say that even if this movement is not easily representable through the traditional political parties there is a kind of progressive clear progress in the tendency that is dominant in the movement and in its composition but I would say that first the socialist really disillusioned its own their own electorate so their station mainly affected the socialist party and and second probably the people want to see a change you know you know in this kind of system where you have two parties so one face you change but the protest of the people was exactly about this kind of very limited alternative you have attends in this system because in the fundamental policies at the end there aren't so many differences in the two parties so you change the people but you don't expect a big change in terms of policies no and so it's a it's a bit trapped you know the system and that was part of the of the reasons of the movement they they call they tried no in the in the squares in the demonstrations you don't represent us right meaning you all know so that it was this kind of sense of distance from the political system as such not to one specific political party so so in the demands are they asking for some kind of a proportional proportional representation system an open-list system to ensure that independence and other smaller smaller organizations would also get the chance at articulating their views in the political system yeah that's a specific and and explicit request because here in Spain as in Italy as in other countries we have a majoritarian system which in some way the form not the the the expression of the of the votes and and advantage the the majoritarian parties no and and in Spain it's very strong this kind of advantages that the majoritarian parties get from the electoral system and there is a request of having a kind of much more proportional form of representation of the votes in so much more space for the smaller parties