Juan José Ibarretxe

Juan José Ibarretxe.

Juan José Ibarretxe (center).

Juan José Ibarretxe Markuartu (born March 15, 1957 in Llodio , Álava province ) is a Spanish politician.

He is a member of the Basque Nationalist Party ( EAJ / PNV ) and the Prime Minister was (January 2, 1999 to May 4, 2009 Basque lehendakari ) of the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country .

Ibarretxe has a degree in Economics from the University of the Basque Country . He is married to Begoña Arregui and has two children.

Political career until 2005

Ibarretxe was mayor of his hometown Llodio from 1983 to 1987 . He has been a member of the Basque Regional Parliament since 1984. From 1994 to 1999, under his predecessor José Antonio Ardanza, he was Vizelehendakari and Minister of Finance and Public Administration of the Basque Country.

In 2003, Ibarretxe sparked heated domestic political discussions in Spain with a plan to gradually expand autonomy up to and including independence for the Basque Country. The new Statute of Autonomy he put forward, the so-called Plan Ibarretxe , was clearly rejected by the Spanish Parliament in January 2005. In the regional elections on April 17, 2005 Ibarretxes party coalition lost the majority. Nevertheless, Ibarretxe was tasked with forming a government as chairman of the strongest party.

The 3rd term of office

On June 23, 2005, Ibarretxe was elected Prime Minister for the third time by a simple majority. He received 34 votes in the second ballot, his opponent Patxi López from the Spanish Social Democrats ( PSOE ) only 33 votes. The day before, the same result was achieved in the vote, but an absolute majority of 38 votes was required.

Ibarretxe could only be elected with the help of the controversial communist PCTV / EHAK, which gave him two of their nine votes so that Ibarretxe did not lose to López. Ibarretxe united the votes of his PNV , the Eusko Alkartasuna (together 29 votes) and the Ezker Batua (3 votes). López received 18 votes from his PSE and 15 votes from the conservative Partido Popular (PP). PCTV, which is suspected of being affiliated with the Basque terrorist organization ETA or its banned political organization Batasuna , supported Ibarretxe because, unlike López, he advocated the independence of the Basque Country.

In the elections on May 1, 2009, the PNV retained the majority of votes by a narrow margin over the PSOE. Due to an alliance with the Partido Popular (PP), however, the socialist Patxi López was elected Lehendakari (President of the Basque Parliament) on May 5, 2009, which ended the three decades of the nationalists' reign.

Web links

Commons : Juan José Ibarretxe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official homepage of Ibarretxe (bask./span./engl./frz.)
• Juan José Ibarretxe in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)