Sean O'Curneen Cañas - Presidente CDL
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, EU Committee of the Regions

IN 2011 WE WILL EMPOWER MORE PEOPLE
The year that ends has meant for Spain, on the one hand, the highest sporting recognition - the FIFA World Cup - and on the other hand and simultaneously, a dangerous loss of confidence in the health of Spain's public finances and her ability to defeat the challenge. For us in Centro Democrático Liberal this year has confirmed our assessment of Spanish society: on the one hand, Spaniards at an individual or collective level show brilliance in their respective fields of activity over and over again, but the country as a whole seems unable to reproduce this brilliance due to the suffocating system installed in Spain by PP and PSOE. More than ever, a liberal democrat force is needed to empower people: a different, innovative political force, that not only speaks about important topics absent from the media headlines and ignored by the big parties, but which also demonstrates through its actions that there is another way of carrying out politics.

While we have experienced with angst the political, economic and social upheavals that Spain has suffered, from the perspective of our party we finish 2010 with much satisfaction, and for two reasons.

First: because of CDL's constant growth, in number of members as well as its expansion across Spain. This trend, which will continue in 2011, and which with the local elections will consolidate the presence of our party in various parts of the country where it has previously been absent, demonstrates what we have been saying tirelessly: that the stifling two-party system that Spain suffers is not in any way a reflection of the plurality of Spanish society.

Secondly: because CDL - which does not have even a tiny fraction of the resources of the two big parties and whose leaders and members are building this political alternative on a voluntary basis - has nonetheless demonstrated with actions the following commitments:
- our obsession with empowering people so that they can develop their full potential as individuals who care, thanks to our communications which not only denounce but also make concrete proposals that will empower people, and thanks to the field work of our mayors, councillors and local party branches, and which has been recognised and rewarded this year at European level in the very first LeaDeR awards;
- the respect that we have for the citizen and our unbreakable commitment to a quality democracy, with our campaign against the abusive increase of funding for political parties while vital investments for the future of the country have been cut;
- and our europeanism, convinced as we are that we need more European UNION and that this will come through the participation of its citizens, which we demonstrated with our campaign to involve all Spanish municipalities in the European Covenant of Mayors for sustainable energy.

Of course, we would have liked to have achieved much more and to have done it faster, but we end 2010 with the conviction that our growth this year places us in the position to increase our activity in 2011 along the lines we have established and to do it for the benefit of a larger number of citizens.

Convinced that 2011 will be a good year for CDL, I hope that it will also be for you, your family, Spain and Europe.