Felipe González Márquez
(born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish
socialist politician. He was the General
Secretary of the
Spanish Socialist Workers'
Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the
longest-serving
Prime Minister
of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from
1982 to 1996. He is married and has three children.
Early life
Felipe
González was born in Seville
, son of a
farmer who had a small dairy. He has a sister named Lola González y
Márquez, married to Francisco Germán Palomino y Romera, by whom she
has two sons, Felipe and Germán Palomino y González.
He studied Law at Seville University
and started his career as attorney specializing in
labour. While at the University he met members of the
socialist Trade Union
UGT (Union General de
Trabajadores) that was clandestine at the time. He also contacted
members of the PSOE and started taking part in the Party's
clandestine activity. During that time he adopted "Isidoro" as
nom de guerre and moved to
Madrid. He was elected Secretary General of the Party at the
Suresnes Congress, in France. When Franco
died, Gonzalez became the prominent head of the opposing movement
to the remnants of the dictatorship, and was capital, along with
then serving prime minister
Adolfo
Suarez, in the
Spanish transition to
democracy. In the first democratic general election after
Franco's death, held in 1977, the PSOE became the second most voted
party, and this served Gonzalez to appear as a young, active and
promising leader. However, he did not win the 1979 election and had
to wait for 1982 and the debacle of the governing UCD party to come
into office.
Prime Minister
In the
1982 general
election held on 28 October 1982, the PSOE gained 48.3% of the
vote and 202 deputies (out of 350). On 2 December González became
the
prime
minister, with
Alfonso Guerra as
his deputy. His election was met with tremendous expectation of
change amongst Spaniards. Under his government education was made
universal and free until the age of 16, university education was
expanded, the
social security system
began and a partial legalisation of
abortion became law for the first time, despite
opposition from the
Roman Catholic
Church. González pushed for liberal reforms and a restructuring
of the economy.
On 23 February 1983, the Government passed a law
nationalising Rumasa, a
private business that included
merchant
banking interests, on the grounds that it was at the point of
bankruptcy and the government needed to protect the savings of
depositors and the jobs of its 60,000 employees, a decision that
aroused considerable criticism and a judicial conflict over the law
that was only resolved, in favour of the government, in December
1986.
Having promised in the election to create 800,000 new jobs his
government's restructuring of the
steel
industry actually resulted in job lay offs. When they tried to
similarly tackle the debt problems in the
dock industry in 1984 the dockers went on
strike. The (UGT), or Workers' General
Union, called a general strike on 20 June 1985 in protest against
social security reforms. The same year his government began a
massive
privatisation both partial or
full, of the 200 state owned companies, as well as the hundreds of
affiliates dependent on these companies.
In the
1986 general
election held on 22 June 1986, the PSOE gained 44.1% of the
vote and 184 deputies in Parliament. González was elected prime
minister for the second time. During this second term, Spain joined
the
European Economic
Community (EEC) in 1986.
González supported Spain remaining in
NATO
that same year in a referendum reversing his and the party's earlier
anti-NATO position. A general strike on 14 December 1988
completely paralysed the country and caused the Unions and the PSOE
left wing to describe González as moving to the right.
On 29 October 1989, he won the
1989 general election with
39.6% of the vote and 175 seats, his third successive mandate. In
the
First Gulf War in 1991, González
supported the USA. From 1991, the PSOE started losing its urban
vote in favour of the reformed
People's Party. On the other side,
events like the
1992 Olympic
Games held in Barcelona or the Universal Exposition in Seville
helped consolidating Spain´s international image as a modern,
affluent country.
On 6 June 1993, González won the
1993 general election with
38.8% of the vote and 159 deputies.
His fourth victory was marred by the fact
he was forced to form a pact with nationalist political parties
from Catalonia
and Basque
country
in order to form a new government.
Towards the end of 1995 there was a debate about whether González
should lead the PSOE in the forthcoming general elections. The
People's Party intensified its campaign to associate his period in
office with a poor economic situation (although unemployment had
begun to decline and the economic reforms of the previous decade
initiated a lasting period of economic growth
http://www.ine.es/daco/daco42/cne00/pib.xls#Tabla_2!A1) and with
accusations of
corruption and
state terrorism scandals, including
allegations of waging a dirty war against the terrorist group
ETA by means of the
GAL.
There was speculation
in the press about Javier Solana as a
possible replacement, but Solana was appointed Secretary General of
NATO in December 1995.
Left with no other suitable candidate, the party was again led by
González and in the
1996 general election
held on 3 March 1996, they gained 37.4% of the vote and 141
deputies. They lost the election to the
People's Party whose leader
José María Aznar replaced
González as prime minister ("presidente" in
Spanish, but not to be confused with the
English use of the term) on 4 or 5 May 1996.
The legacy of Felipe González's long mandate left a bittersweet
taste: on the one hand, under his tenure, Spain initiated a period
of thorough modernisation; on the other hand the scandals that
monopolized the news in his last years still preclude a
dispasionate consideration of his tenure. His Ministers of Economy
and Finance (notably Miguel Boyer,
Carlos Solchaga and
Pedro Solbes) implemented a vigorous program of
economic reforms that included privatization of public companies
such as Telefónica or ENDESA, liberalization and deregulation of
the economy and restructuring of whole industry sectors such as
steel or mining which left many people unemployed and created
resentment among the working classes and the trade unions. This
situation was worsened by the massive influx of women baby boomers
into the labour market, which further increased the unemployment
rates.
His cabinets, on the other hand, paved the way to a long period of
declining interest rates, low budgetary deficits and stronger
economic growth than the European average . Spain was a founding
member of the transition to the single currency (
Euro) based on the measures of his last government .
Other reforms had also a deep impact on the Spanish economy,such as
the extension of a network of highways, airports and the creation
of new infrastructures,including the high speed train. Gonzalez-led
cabinets were the first to implement a national, comprehensive
infrastructure program. Besides, under his tenure certain social
benefits such as free universal health care were expanded, reform
of the pension system extended it to needy people and universal
public schooling came in for all children under 16 and the creation
of new Universities was implemented.
Felipe González also secured Spain's entry into the EEC, which the
country joined in 1986 and consolidated democratic government.
Together with François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, they gave an
injection of new life to Europe's public face. In the terrorist
fight, an intense police campaign secured several victories that
left the terrorist organisation ETA severely debilitated. Among
those were the capture of the ETA central arsenal in Sokoa and the
capture of the organisation's ruling cupola in 1992.
However in the final years of his mandate several cases of
corruption, the most notable of which were the scandals involving
Civil Guard Director Roldán, further eroded popular support for the
PSOE. Nonetheless González and most of his ministers generally
managed to leave office with their reputation intact although there
had been some singularly unfortunate choices made in the case of
some of the lower ranking public servants, according to María
Antonia Iglesias (
La memoria recuperada. Lo que nunca
han contado Felipe González y los dirigentes socialistas,
2003);this author is very close, though, to the PSOE official line,
since she even served as head of the public TV broadcast
Televisión Española appointed
in the post by one of the Gonzalez's cabinets.
González's Government 1982–1996
After the presidency
González ended his fourth term on 4 May 1996. Since September 1996
he has headed the Madrid-based Global Progress Foundation (FPG). At
the beginning of the 34th PSOE National Congress on 20 June 1997 he
surprisingly resigned as leader of the party. He also resigned from
the federal executive committee, though retaining his seat in the
Congress. With no clear successor he continued to exert an enormous
influence over the party. He was only replaced at the 35th party
Congress in July 2000 when
José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero became the leader.
In 1997 he was considered a leading candidate to take over the
position of
President of the European
Commission after
Jacques Santer.
The position ultimately went to Italy's
Romano Prodi.
In 1999 González was put in charge of the party's Global Progress
Commission in response to
globalisation. The Commission's report formed
the basis of the closing declaration of the 21st Socialist
International Congress on 8 November–9 1999.
He stood down as a deputy in the Spanish Parliament in March
2004.
On 27 July 2007 the Spanish Government appointed him as
plenipotentiary and extraordinary ambassador for the bicentenary
celebrations in commemoration of the independence of Latin America.
The celebrations will begin in September 2010 in Mexico.
On 14 December 2007 heads of state and governments of European
Union members, in a summit held in Brussels, appointed Gonzalez as
chairman of a
think tank on Europe's
future, consisting of up to nine well-prestiged personalities,and
given the task of writing a report, by June 2010, on the challenges
the European Union will face from 2020 to 2030. It will also look
at how to achieve a closer understanding between citizens and the
Union.
One of his hobbies is tending
bonsai trees.
During his
tenure at Moncloa
, he received and cultivated several of them, mostly
Mediterranean species, that he later donated to the Royal Botanic Garden of
Madrid.
Member of the
Club of Madrid.
Marriage and family
He married
María del Carmen Julia Romero y López in Seville on 16 July
1969 and had three children:
- Pablo González Romero
- David González Romero
- María González Romero
Published works
- (co-authorship with Víctor Márquez Reviriego, 1982)
- (1997)
- (co-authorship with Juan Luis Cebrián, 2001)
- (2003)
See also
References
- http://www.geneall.net/H/per_page.php?id=467731
- Spain's Ministry of the Interior: Official election
results
- [1], Cadena SER (in Spanish).
- [ http://www.publico.es/espana/027694/felipe/gonzalez/europa],
Público news (Spanish).
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strengthening democracy around the world by drawing on the unique
experience and resources of its Members – 66 democratic former
heads of state and government.
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