Patxi López

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Patxi López, 2010

Francisco Javier "Patxi" López Álvarez (born October 4, 1959 in Portugalete , Autonomous Community of the Basque Country ) is a Spanish politician. From 2002 to 2014 he was chairman of the Partido Socialista de Euskadi-Euskadiko Ezkerra (PSE-EE), the Basque branch of the social democratic PSOE , and from 2009 to 2012 Prime Minister ( Lehendakari ) of the Autonomous Community of Basque Country . From January to July 2016 he was President of the Spanish House of Representatives ; Since June 2017 he has been Secretary for Federal Policy of the PSOE under Pedro Sánchez .

Life

López grew up in a socialist family. His father, Eduardo López Albizu, was a prominent activist on the Spanish left, treasurer of the Basque Socialists. In 1975 Patxi López joined the Basque Young Socialists and was their general secretary from 1985 to 1988. In 1977 he joined PSE-EE. From 1987 to 1989 he was a member of the Spanish Chamber of Deputies. In 1991 he became a member of the Basque Parliament and in 1997 he was elected Secretary General of his party.

From the Basque regional elections in 2001, López advocated a rapprochement between the PSE-EE and Basque regionalism. He spoke out against the previously pursued strategy of an alliance with the conservative Partido Popular (PP), which distinguished itself as the Spanish-nationalist counterpoint to Basque nationalism, and instead called for the Spanish-Basque identity conflict to be overcome.

As a result, the PSE-EE was able to win votes in the Basque Country at the expense of both the PP and the ruling Basque nationalist party PNV . In 2005 López stood for the PSE-EE in the election for President of the Basque Autonomous Community. He lost against the incumbent Juan José Ibarretxe (PNV), but was able to establish the PSE-EE as the strongest opposition party. The following year he played an important role during the (most recently failed) negotiations between the Spanish government under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) and the Basque terrorist organization ETA , as he held talks in the Basque Country for the PSOE with the leaders of the banned ETA Party Batasuna led.

In the regional elections in March 2009, the PNV received just under the majority of the votes cast before the PSE-EE, but at the same time, for the first time, there was an arithmetical majority for PSE-EE and PP. López then announced that he would strive for a PP-tolerated minority government. This was accepted by the PSOE leadership, although it feared that it would lose the support of the PNV in the Spanish parliament . On May 5, 2009, López was elected Basque Prime Minister ( Lehendakari ) in the Basque Parliament with the support of the PP , thus ending the three decades of the nationalists' reign. In addition to the PSE-EE, the 13 MPs of the PP and the only MP of the Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPyD) party voted for López . The swearing-in of López took place on May 7, 2009.

After López lost the support of the PP in spring 2012, he dissolved the Basque regional parliament in autumn 2012 and scheduled new elections for October 21, 2012. In this election, in which López again ran as the top candidate of the PSE-EE, his party only received 19.1% of the vote (2009: 30.7%) and 16 seats in parliament (2009: 25). In 2012 he switched to federal politics and since then has held various secretary posts in the federal party; In 2014 he resigned his regional parliamentary mandate and Idoia Mendia became his successor at the head of the Basque national association.

On January 13, 2016, López was elected President of the House of Representatives for its 11th legislative term after the election of December 20, 2015 , in which he moved into the Spanish Chamber of Deputies for the second time since 1987. He lost this office again after the early elections in June 2016 .

At the beginning of 2017, he announced his candidacy for the PSOE chairmanship, but received just under ten percent of the votes cast in the primary election held on May 21, 2017 .

Web links

Commons : Patxi López  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See El País , February 15, 2009: El linaje de López (in Spanish).
  2. ↑ Thomas Urban , Bulldozer against speech machine sueddeutsche.de, April 12, 2017.
  3. ^ Ralf Streck: Spanish socialists choose left course. Telepolis , May 22, 2017, accessed the same day.
personal data
SURNAME López, Patxi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES López Álvarez, Francisco Javier (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish politician
DATE OF BIRTH 4th October 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Portugalete