Miriam González Durántez

Early life

Miriam González Durántez was born to two teachers in Olmedo, in the Spanish province of Valladolid. Her father, José Antonio González Caviedes, was also Mayor of Olmedo and served as a senator for Valladolid for the conservative People's Party (PP) from 1989 until his death in 1996. She studied law at the University of Valladolid and then won a postgraduate scholarship to the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. She met Nick Clegg in Bruges, and continued to work there.

Career

Having previously worked as an advisor on trade law, economic relations and the Middle East to both the European Union and the British Government, González Durántez is a partner at Dechert, where she is co-chair of the firm’s international trade and Government Regulation practice. Prior to that, she worked at DLA Piper for six years.

González Durántez is considered an expert on European Union law and co-authored the book Regulatory Aspects of the WTO Telecoms Agreements.

Since October 2013 González Durántez has been the honorary president of Canning House in London, the home of the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Council.

González Durántez was also on the Board of Directors of Acciona, S.A. between June 2010 and July 2014.

González published her first cookbook, Made In Spain: Recipes and stories from my country and beyond in 2016.

Personal life

González Durántez dated the British politician Nick Clegg for several years in Brussels before their marriage in 2000. The couple have three sons. She insisted on Spanish names if they were to have the family name "Clegg". She is a practising Roman Catholic, and together with her husband they agreed that their children will be raised as such, though her husband is agnostic. She has not taken British citizenship and so, as an EU citizen who is not a Commonwealth or Irish citizen, she can vote in local and European elections but not in UK Parliamentary elections.

González Durántez spoke of her relationship with the United Kingdom in a 2014 interview stating that after living in the country she "...felt a freedom that I had never felt before in my life, a freedom to be myself. I come from a culture, in Spain, in Brussels, where, if you want to be a lawyer, you study law, if you want to be an economist, you study economy. Whatever you do early in your life determines what you do later on. When I came here, I went for lots of chats with people because I didn't know what to do. And pretty much all of them said, 'What do you want to do?' And I was like, 'Me? You want to know what I think? I have a choice?' Now I take it for granted, but it was a complete shock to my system. I still think it today: if I wanted to change my job, everyone would say, 'Great, good for you.'"

2010 UK General Election campaign

When Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron became increasingly involved in the media and 2010 United Kingdom general election campaigns, the spotlight turned to González Durántez. She publicly said that she would be "willing to help" with the campaign but, unlike Cameron, she would be unable to take time off from work and her family life to take part. Asked by a Spanish newspaper whether she would quit her job, González Durántez said that "If Nick were Prime Minister and I had to give up my job to support the country, I would have no problem in doing so."