Jose Shine Rodríguez Zapatero

Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Valladolid, August 4th 1960) is a Spanish Politician , member of the Socialist party (PSOE), and the 5th president of the Spanish Government since the Transition, after its victory with the general elections of 2004.

N.B.: One often indicates it by his only second Family name, Zapatero (for as much, if the first name is employed, one must say Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero , and not " Jose Luis Zapatero) "

Anecdotic fact, it is called " Bambi " by its… in favor (and not detractors, as one could have expected it).

Family origin

A republican grandfather

Although born with Valladolid, he lived as of his more tender childhood in the town of León from where his/her paternal grandfather was originating. This one was the captain of the Army Juan Rodríguez Lozano, of republican ideology; it began its career at the time of the bloody colonial combat of the Spanish army against the Moroccan freedom fighters, receiving a high military distinction there, under the orders of the general Sanjurjo, one of future the chiefs of the nationalist rising of 1936. Then, it took part fully in wild repression against the minors asturiens in 1934, under the orders of the general Franco. It should be specified however that the revolution of Asturies was strongly tinkled of Bolsheviks influences and Socialists. He refused to join military rising against the republican government at the beginning of the Guerre of Spain the July 18th 1936. He will be shot one month later, the August 18th 1936, around León, shown at the time of his summary lawsuit to have carried out militants phalangists " while having buried them alive to the head and to have used of those like target for its soldats". One of the great mysteries is why it returns in León, of the camp " Nacional" , whereas it was only with six kilometers of the Face.

The captain Rodríguez Lozano had deposited in front of a notary his will in which he reiterated his belief as a God, pled for his innocence, forgave with those which were going to carry out it and required that its honor be restored. It is the reading of this will which will mark the political commitment of the family Rodríguez Zapatero towards the socialist ideals of PSOE, left prohibited 1939 until February 1978.

The tragedy of the war crimes nevertheless is shared with that of his wife Sonsoles Espinosa, whose maternal grandfather was shot by the partisans of the Republic.

Education and training

After a schooling in religious centers (College of the Disciples of Jesus de León, then with the Colegio Leonés ), it returns to the University of León to follow studies of Droit according to the family tradition (his/her father, senior of the college of lawyers of Valladolid, manages with its other wire a cabinet of administrative law).

In 1983, Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is graduate in right, with a report of end of studies devoted to the statute of the autonomous region of Castille-and-León (last Spanish area to constitute itself like autonomous this same year). He is engaged as professor attached in constitutional Law, and will remain in contact with the university education until in 1986, year when he will devote himself to his political career.

Political course

Its family is already committed politically well on the left. It is initially close to the Communiste S. In 1976, it attends with his/her father the first meeting authorized of the Spanish working Socialist party (PSOE, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ) with Gijón and in 1978, adhesive of the posters for the two left parties.

It adheres to the Socialist party in February 1979 thorough on the one hand by its admiration of the speech of the young person Felipe González, but also by the ideals inherited his grandfather, who will lead it to become youngest député ever elected (22 years in 1982), then the 5th president of the government since the adoption of the Spanish constitution in 1978. In memory of his grandfather, it will begin again for its first speech like chair a passage of the will and will declare “a desire infinite for peace, the love for the good and what can improve the social conditions the most stripped of”.

During its years of studies of right, it had not hidden its admiration for the land reforms of Mao Tsé-toung and those of the Soviet Union.

Deputy with the Congress (1986-2000)

At the time of the legislative elections of the June 22nd 1986, it is elected appointed PSOE with the Congrès of the deputies (Lower House), and is rapporteur of the Constitutionnelle commissions and the Defense of the people.

Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is elected provincial general secretary of the PSOE with León the September 19th 1988.

Number one of the socialist list of the province of León, it is re-elected appointed at the time of the elections of the October 29th 1989 and becomes rapporteur of the Constitutionnelle commissions, of the Defense of the people and Justice and the Interior.

The February 17th 1991, at the time of the 6th congress, it is re-elected with the provincial general secretary of the PSOE of Leon with the support of 98% of the delegates. A few months before the end of the legislature, the April 12th 1993, it is named by the PSOE to belong to the permanent delegation to the Lower House.

He is re-elected at the time of the elections of the June 6th 1993 and became the spokesperson of his group within the commission of Justice and the Interior.

Number one of the socialist list of León, it is re-elected with the Congress of the deputies at the time of the elections of the March 3rd 1996 whereas its party loses the capacity and enters the opposition. In May of the same year, he is elected socialist spokesperson at the commission of the Public administrations. In October 1996, its party indicates it to belong to roundtable PSOE- IU for the study of the autonomous financing.

Its parliamentary work is greeted in November 1998 by the journalists who cover the hemicycle by indicating it like one of most active of his group.

He is elected for the fifth time appointed at the time of the elections of the March 12th 2000.

Direction of the PSOE and the opposition (2000-2004)

The June 25th 2000, it deposits its candidature for the direction of the PSOE at the time of sound 35e federal congress, organized in the hope to lead the party to the victory of legislative planned for 2004. It incarnates the alternative to Jose Bono for a new process of change. The July 23rd 2000, it is elected general secretary of the PSOE, thus succeeding Joaquín Almunia.

The May 25th 2003, for the first time in ten years, its party progresses to the regional elections and local elections, without arriving for preceding the Popular party as much of many big cities or of areas. However in Catalonia, the left forces syndicated by the Party of the Socialists of Catalonia (PSC), manages in December to draw aside from the autonomous regional government the formation of the center-right CiU of Jordi Pujol (a Catalan nationalist formation, therefore without ideological relationship with the Popular party).

Legislative elections of 2004

Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is the candidate of the PSOE to the presidency of the government at the time of the general elections of the March 14th 2004. It is given losing by the surveys in the majority of the media, when the Attentats in Madrid of March 11th, 2004 occur, three days before the elections.

For certain analysts, it is mainly the handling of information during the crisis by the government of Jose María Aznar which will mobilize militant and left sympathizers against the party in power, and to make rock the undecided ones.

Other analysts stress that Zapatero also receives the support of an electorate dissatisfied with the Guerre in Iraq and alignment with the policies of the president George W. Bush, of the governmental control of public radio-television, as well as management by the government of the shipwreck of the tanker Prestige, qualified greater environmental “catastrophe” of the history of the country by the whole of the media. Other criteria also took part in the mobilization of the left electorate: the polemic around the families of the soldiers died at the time of the crash landing of a military aircraft Yak-43, the opposition to the reform of the market of work, the rise of the prices of the residences or the confrontation with the governments of the areas with strong personality like Catalonia and the Pays Basque.

In this electoral context, the candidate Mariano Rajoy sees passing the Popular party of the absolute majority to the opposition, of many members of its party their doubts express about the democratic legitimacy of the new government and support consequently a climate of hard confrontation between the two more important parties of the country.

Without obtaining the absolute majority, Zapatero must count at the Parliament on the support others two parties which already composed with the Socialists the Catalan government: Izquierda Unida (IU, “linked left”, federation of the communist formations and ecologists) and the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, “Republican left of Catalonia”, freedom fighter).

Zapatero chair government (2004-)

The first two years of the Zapatero government were remembered by the withdrawal of the Spanish troops of Iraq, the legalization of the homosexual marriage with right to the adoption, a new massive regularization clandestine immigrants, the reduction in the schools of the weight of the religion, the offer of a dialog aiming at finishing some with the Basque terrorism of ETA, a “Alliance of civilizations” with the Muslim world, the support with the Catalan neonationalism in a federalistic project of recasting of regional autonomies and the creation of an interdepartmental commission to work out, by respect with the “historical memory”, a bill returning justice with the victims of the Franquisme (opening common graves of the Civil war, revision of the lawsuits of condemned republicans, compensation for the families for shot, wounded and imprisoned).

First decisions (2004)

Foreign politics

Its first decisions are to announce the immediate withdrawal of the Spanish forces of Iraq, then the unambiguous support for the project of the Treaty of Rome of 2004 or European Constitution, approved in February 2005 by Référendum with 75% of the voices.

In 2004, it is one of the rare leaders to express his support for the democratic candidate officially John Kerry against the outgoing president George W. Bush, finally re-elected with the presidency of the the United States. Rancorous, this last will take it on the telephone for the traditional congratulations message, neither the day of its re-election, nor the following days. The USA-Spain relations remained tended thereafter, accentuated by the reversal of the Spanish policy in Latin America, favorable to Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, two pet peeves of Washington. The visit of Juan Carlos to the ranch of George W. Bush during the year 2005 was not followed of a re-establishment of cordial relationship with the Spanish head of government. In 2007, it supported Ségolène Royal in her candidature for the presidential election.

Co-operation and development assistance

He announces the will of the government to direct part of his foreign politics towards solidarity with the third world. Miguel Ángel Moratinos (old representing of the EU to the Close East) is placed at the head of the new Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Co-operation. The Spanish contribution to the development of the less favoured countries should go up on the level of 0,5% of the GDP to the end of the year 2008, and up to 0,7% in 2012. The claim of the rate of 0,7% had been the subject of a long protest of students followed by the media during the year 1994. The September 20th 2004 it Co-present at the assembly of UNO, for the objectives of the millenium, an initiative known as “Alliance against the hunger”, in partnership with the presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Jacques Chirac (France) and Ricardo Lagos (Chile), as well as the general secretary of UNO, Kofi Annan.

Relations with the Latin America and the Maghreb

On her arrival with the presidency of the government, Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announces the intention of the cabinet to give a priority attention to the relations of Spain with the Latin America and the the Maghreb (in particular Morocco and Algérie). To underline this will, its first visit abroad takes place the April 24th 2004 in Morocco, where it inaugurates with the king Mohammed VI a monument in homage to the victims of the Attentat of Casablanca of May 2003. The visit is regarded by the local authorities as a positive turning in the bilateral relations, very tended after the crisis of the small island Persil during the summer 2002.

The November 16th 2004, at the time of the top of the EU, the Spanish government expresses its support for a policy of inflecting of the European Union with regard to the mode castrist of Cuba - with which the relations were cold since 2003 - by supporting the opening of a dialog for a democratic transition and peaceful. In answer to this initiative, Cuba will release the poet Raúl Rivero and three other prisoners of conscience the November 29th 2004. New releases follow during the month of December 2004.

The relations of the Zapatero government with the Venezuela and the government of the president Hugo Chávez are strongly shaken in December 2004, at the time of declarations on television of the minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos supposing the implication of the Aznar government in the coup attempt of State of April 2002. Moratinos is obliged to present public excuses later two days. The November 23rd 2004, Hugo Chávez goes to Madrid to mean the bringing together of the two economic material governments and to support the mediator role of Spain. In March 2005, the Zapatero government proposes to intercede in the open crisis between the Colombia and Venezuela because of the activities of the guerilla Colombian coming from the territory Venezuelan.

Zapatero is one of the instigators, by his speech in the United Nations in particular, of the North-South bringing together, with its “Alliance of Civilizations”.

Rights citizens

Policy of equality and protection of the women

It constitutes an equal government with as many women as men, and makes vote a law aiming to the protection of the women vis-a-vis the Marital violences.

Recognitions of other forms of marriage

It frontally runs up in 2005 against part of the Spanish right-hand side and the Catholic church, by legalizing the marriage of homosexual the (according to the example of the Netherlands, of the Belgium, the Canada).

In April 2005, (coincidence: the shortly after the election of Benoit XVI), the Congress of the deputies (Lower House of the Parliament), by 183 votes for and 136 against, approves the bill of legalization of the homosexual marriage. This bill belonged to the socialist program. The Spanish Civil code specifies that the marriage implies “the same obligations and the same effects that the people concerned are of the same sex or of different sex”. The new law thus guarantees the same legal and social rights to the married homosexual couples that with the heterosexual couples, that it is in terms of heritage, divorce, perception of pensions, access to nationality and adoption of children (Spanish only).

The bill meets the savage opposition not only of the Catholic church and the Popular party but also of the Protestant, orthodoxe Churches and of the Jewish representative organizations.

Little time after the vote of the Lower House, the preserving mayors several capitals of province threatened to resort to civil disobedience and the conscientious objection preached by the the Vatican against the homosexual marriage. Thus the preserving mayors of Valladolid, Avila, Burgos, Leon and ten more modest localities affirmed than they would not marry the homosexual ones and than they would refuse to delegate to other municipal persons in charge the power of the faire.

Reform education

The December 15th 2005, the Parliament approves a new organic law of teaching (LOE).

In November 2005, more than five hundred and thousand people ravel with the call of the catholic confederation of the parents of pupils (the Concapa ) and of the opposition of PP, protesting against the reform of the courses of Catholic religion. Heads of the procession ravel the members of the Popular party, of tens of priests and monk, six bishops (they were 20 against the marriage of homosexual) of which the archbishop of Grenade. The shortly after this demonstration, the president asks to meet the representatives of the collectives to negotiate the reform.

In fact, two aspects of the text were disputed by the Spanish episcopate: on the one hand the fact that the 1.400 “semi-private” colleges, 70% catholics, but financed by the State, will have to obey the same mode as the public corporations, without being able to select their pupils; but especially the freezing of a law voted under the preceding legislature, which returned the course of religion obligatoire at the school and decisive for the access to the higher and university classes.

The new LOE envisages the possibility for the families of following a religious teaching nonobligatory and not taken into account for the access to the university.

Policy of integration of the immigrants

It proceeds to a massive regularization of the clandestine immigrants in spite of the disapproval of several European countries like the the United Kingdom and the France which chose different policies on the matter.

Zapatero and the Francoism: the recovery of the historical memory

Thirty years after the natural death of the general Free, a bill on the “recovery of the memory” was deposited at the Parliament by the government, in particular consisting in compensating all the victims for the civil war and the dictatorship, like depositing in places more suitable the skins of carried out being still in common graves.

The government asks this occasion that all pre-constitutional escutcheons and blazons (translation: pro-Franco time) are withdrawn from the public corporations, that the pro-Franco toponymy of the cities is re-examined and that the monuments glorifiant this time are unbolted or reconverted. He considers that the company is from now on sufficiently ripe and ready, a quarter century after the success of the Democratic transition and peaceful carried out under Adolfo Suárez.

The March 17th 2005, the Minister for Transport makes withdraw in middle of the night and catimini the last statue of the general Franco with Madrid, whereas are celebrated the 90 years of the old communist leader Santiago Carrillo.

The equestrian statue of Free was located at a few meters of two sculptures of the socialist leaders of IIe République (1931-1939), Indalecio Prieto and Francisco Largo Caballero, symbolizing the two faces of the same wound that was the civil war. These last were immediately soiled, in reprisals, by the nostalgic ones of Francoism whereas others require that they in their turn be unbolted, to avoid giving the impression to impose a vision manichéenne civil war.

A few days later, the government announces that he will study the fate of the monument of the Basilique Holy-Cross LED valle of los Caídos where Franco is buried. The Council of Europe decided for the adaptation of the site (which receives even more than 400.000 visitors per annum) in place of memory also of the victims. the allies of gaughe of the PSOE, like Izquierda Unida, decided for the transfer of the remainders of Free and Primo de Rivera in a private cemetery.

The March 23rd 2005, in the wake of the president of the government, the socialist mayor of Guadalajara made also withdraw to him in middle of the night and catimini two statues located in the middle of its city, one of Free (built after the death of the dictator by popular subscription) and the other of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. In September 2005, the socialist mayor of Pobla de Vallbona (Valence) made in its turn withdraw without advertisement and the small hour the bust of Free (set up in 1973 on the central place of the city), whereas the political allies of the PSOE are further requiring than the equestrian statue of the general Miguel Primo de Rivera, located at the center of the town of Jérez, that is to say it also unbolted.

In front of this recovery considered to be unilateral and manichéenne of the Spanish historical memory, the opposition denounces most radical, sectarian government the “and Revanchard of the Spanish democratic history”. The conservative Mariano Rajoy, chief of the Popular party, shows Zapatero “to break with the spirit of the Transition” whereas the former first socialist minister Felipe González repudiates his initiative which he considers late and petty.

For several historians, the decisions of Zapatero are a nonsense bus of the areas of Spain supported Franco at the beginning of the civil war and which it belongs to their historical heritage. According to some of them, Zapatero would have opened the Pandora's box. If Three of the four keystones of the democratic transition - reciprocal forgiveness, dialog between government and opposition, philosophy of regionalization - were to be again discussed, nothing indicates that the monarchy, restored according to the wish of Free, is disputed.

According to a survey of the daily newspaper El Mundo , 41,3% of the Spaniards would estimate into 2005 that the government “reopens the wounds of the past”, against 25% believer on the contrary that the government policy will contribute to the final obliteration of rancours. A third of questioned does not decide.

In parallel, the November 4th 2005 a draft recommendation of the parliamentary assembly of the the Council of Europe stated in the document Doc. 10737 the Nécessité to condemn Francoism to the international level . The project supports that the violation of the Human rights is not an internal business which relates to only Spain alone , reason for which the Council of Europe is ready to engage a serious debate on this subject with the international level . Moreover, he asks that the Parliament seize the Council of Ministers so that he declares the date of the July 18th like official day of the judgment of the pro-Franco mode.

The reform of the statute of Catalonia

During the process of the Spanish Democratic transition, the political parties had agreed on the form of the political regime of Spain namely: a parliamentary democratic monarchy, a territorial organization with a State and autonomies (a whole of areas equipped with broad and variable competences of the one with the other) and on the principle of lapse of memory of offenses (imposed by the soldiers and the the pro-Franco Cortes ) and of amnesty.

However, it is on these two last point that Zapatero seems, with the eyes of its opponents, to return in particular with the reform of the statute of Catalonia. However, the program electoral 2004 of the PSOE had advanced the need to carry out reforms in the operation of the Spanish system of territorial organization of the Autonomous Communautés .

The November 13rd 2003, in a popular meeting with the Olympic stadium of Barcelona, the Palate of Sant Jordi of the electoral campaign which carried Pasqual Maragall to the Généralité of Catalonia, Rodríguez Zapatero formulated the promise to support the reform of the Statute by these words:

“ I will support the reform of the Statute of Catalonia which the Parliament of Catalonia will approve. ”

Zapatero thus gave its downstream to the presentation of the new Statute of autonomy of the Catalogne which, approved at the end of September by nearly 90% of the deputies of the Catalan autonomous Parliament, is deposited with the Congress of the Deputies the October 6th 2005 which, according to the procedures, constitute a commission of study. The text of this project is considered “anticonstitutional” and “of federalistic inspiration” not only by the PP, whose however formation of PP de Catalogne (PC) had decided in favor of its discussion, but also by certain important leaders of the PSOE.

A recourse near the constitutional Court will be deposited by PP, considering that it was “actually about a constitutional reform of which the goal is “to dismember Spain”. The commission agents whom negotiate the adaptation center on the key points of the project, in particular the proclamation of a Catalan “nation”, full tax sovereignty and the total autonomy of the Catalan legal system.

In this context, the divergences between PP and the government will become hardened and the declarations in front of the media will be increasingly severe.

During the Negotiating procedure between the deposit in the Cortes and the vote by those, various modifications will intervene on the Statute, modifications which will cause the withdrawal of one of the parties associated with the PSOE as well at the national level as at the Catalan level, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC (leader Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira), and the end of the tripartite government between PSC-ERC-ICV in Catalonia (May 10th, 2006).

Since, the Constitutional Court gave an positive opinion on the conformity of the Statute of Catalonia compared to the Constitution of 1978. In April - May 2006, the Statute will be validated by the two Spanish Rooms (in particular thanks to the support of the party CiU, nationalist party Catalan of center-right, whose leader is Artur Mas, and the last stage before its coming into effect will be the referendum in Catalonia, planned for the June 18th, 2006.

Zapatero and Basque Country (Euskadi)

By a policy of dialogs and dialog, Jose Shine Rodríguez Zapatero and its current Minister of Interior Department Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba obtains the March 26th 2006 a trève of the attacks of the ETA, interpreted like the first step towards obtaining peace in the Basque Country. This process, qualified " length, hard and difficile" by Zapatero, remains still marked by actions of extortion of the terrorist group against some heads of undertaking in Euskadi and especially in Navarre. December 30th, 2006, ETA makes an attack against the airport of Madrid with Barajas. Two Ecuadorians die in the explosion. The Minister of Interior Department Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba declares the process broken. The Popular party on several occasions shows the government to maintain contacts with the armed band.

Current functions

  • General secretary of PSOE: since July 2000
  • President of the Government: since April 2004

See too

External bonds

  • the site of countryside of Jose Shine Rodríguez Zapatero
  • the official site of the PSOE
  • the official site of the PSOE Europa, organization for Spanish residing abroad
  • organization for the recovery of the historical memory
  • the site of the presidency of the Spanish government
  • Magnétoscope of the promise of Rodríguez Zapatero of appuier the Statute of Catalonia
----

Be-X-old: Хасэ-ЛуісРадрыґес-Сапатэра Simple: Jose Shine Rodríguez Zapatero

Random links:Communications | Pembroke College (Cambridge) | Lake Agrio | Anne-Laure Sibon | Deutsche Post World Net | Grenoble