Monarch Juan Carlos I Name Maria Fernandez Constituency Madrid | Role Spanish Politician | |
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Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero Succeeded by Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba Party Spanish Socialist Workers\' Party Similar People Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, Leire Pajin, Elena Salgado, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, Maria Teresa Campos | ||
Announcement of election results after 80 percent of votes counted
Global Progress - María Teresa Fernández de la Vega
María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz, LLD (born 15 June 1949) is a Spanish Socialist politician. From 18 April 2004 to 20 October 2010, she was the first deputy prime minister, minister of the Presidency and cabinet spokesperson in the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. She is the first female deputy prime minister in Spanish history.
Contents
- Announcement of election results after 80 percent of votes counted
- Global Progress Mara Teresa Fernndez de la Vega
- Biography
- References
Biography
Fernández de la Vega is the daughter of a high-ranking Francoist public servant, Wenceslao Fernández de la Vega Lombán, delegate of the ministry of employment headed at that time by Fermín Sanz Orrio (1957–1962). She was born in Valencia in 1949. She earned a degree in law from the Complutense University of Madrid in the early 1970s. In 1974 she entered Spain's Cuerpo de Secretarios Jurídicos Laborales, a specialised body of the civil service.
She started her political career in the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia, remaining a member of it until 1979. From 1982 until 1985, she was the director of the advisory cabinet of the minister of justice, and in 1985 she was appointed general director of services at the ministry of justice. In 1986 she became a member of the legal cooperation committee of the Council of Europe. In 1990, she was chosen as a spokesperson of the general council of judicial power by the Senate (1994–1996). On 13 May 1994, the then Justice Minister Juan Alberto Belloch appointed her Secretary of State of justice.
She was elected a member of the Spanish Congress for Jaén for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party candidacy for the 1996-2000 term, being re-elected in the elections of 2000 for Segovia. During this term she became general secretary of the Socialist parliamentary group. In the Spanish general election of 2004 she became a member of the parliament for Madrid, and on 18 April of that year she was appointed first vice president and minister of Presidency, remaining the incumbent of each. For the 2008 election she headed the list for the PSOE in Valencia.
Vega was the first woman to take on the functions of the prime minister in the history of Spanish democracy, when, on 24 April 2004, during the first official visit abroad of Spain's Prime Minister, Zapatero, she presided over the Council of Ministers.
In March 2006, the first vice president went on an African tour with the state secretary for cooperation, Leire Pajín, visiting Kenya and Mozambique, in whose capital, Maputo, they celebrated International Women's Day and closed the forum "Spain-Africa: Women for a better world".
On 7 October 2006 she received the Tomás y Valiente Award in Fuenlabrada, Madrid.
She is a member of judges for democracy (Jueces para la Democracia). She has written many papers, including La reforma de la jurisdicción laboral and Derechos humanos y Consejo de Europa.