Citizens (Spanish political party)

Citizens (Spanish: ; Catalan: Ciutadans [siwtəˈðans]; shortened as Cs—C's until January 2017), officially Citizens–Party of the Citizenry (Ciudadanos–Partido de la Ciudadanía, CS), is a liberal political party in Spain. The party has been located in the centre to centre-right of the political spectrum.

Citizens' political ideology was initially unclear beyond a strong opposition to Catalan independence and Catalan nationalism in general. The party initially presented itself as left-of-centre, holding social democratic and progressive liberal positions; however, it removed any mention of social democracy from its platform in February 2017, moving closer to the political centre. By 2018, it was judged by commentators to have drifted further away from the left, as its focus shifted to competing against the People's Party (PP) as the leading party of the Spanish right. Despite describing itself as postnationalist, it has been deemed by some journalists and academics as professing a Spanish nationalist ideology. Since 2023, the party has been described as less focused on opposing Catalan nationalism, instead emphasising liberal policies.

Founded in Catalonia in 2006, the party initially enjoyed growing support throughout the 2010s on a regional and national level, owing to its staunch opposition to Catalan independence as well as the PP's decline in popularity under then-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Entering the Congress of Deputies in 2015 in fourth place, it became the single largest party in the Parliament of Catalonia in 2017 and entered multiple coalition governments in autonomous communities. Citizens reached its electoral zenith at the April 2019 general election, where it became the third-largest party in the country and pulled ahead of the PP in several regions.