Juan Carlos Girauta (born 12 March 1961) is a Spanish politician formerly serving as

Member of the Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. It has 350 members elect ...

in the 2016–2019 legislature. Previously, he has served as Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2016, representing Spain for the

Citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

political party. A former PSC member, Girauta later joined the PP and became a prolific contributor to

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...

journalism from his Libertad Digital column, before becoming a Citizens member and candidate in the 2014 European election. For years he lent support to the conspiracy theory about the authorship of the 11-M Madrid train bombings in 2004. During his long tenure as Libertad Digital columnist and

COPE The cope (known in Latin as ''pluviale'' 'rain coat' or ''cappa'' 'cape') is a liturgical vestment, more precisely a long mantle or cloak, open in front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour. A co ...

debater, Girauta expressed strong sympathies for right-wing

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

(to the point of calling then-president Zapatero an

anti-Semite Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

) and lent credibility to the now discredited book by Victor Farías dismissing Socialist politician Salvador Allende as a racist and a

Social Darwinist Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...

, without clarifying that the quotations about genetic determinism in Allende's doctoral dissertation were themselves quotations from other authors (mostly

Cesare Lombroso Cesare Lombroso (, also ; ; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835 – 19 October 1909) was an Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the establis ...

) or the fact that Allende was highly critical of these conclusions in his thesis, which was later published as a rebuttal to Farías' position. Farías was later sued for this but Girauta never retracted his statements. He has been described as representative of the hardline right-wing faction in Cs. He ran as candidate to lead the list of the party in Toledo vis-à-vis the April 2019 general election; more than half of the

Talavera de la Reina Talavera de la Reina () is a city and municipality of Spain, part of the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha. Its population of 83,303 makes it the second most populated municipality of the province of Toledo and the fourth largest in th ...

's Cs branch resigned en masse from party membership, lamenting (among other reasons) such a move. He won the party primary nonetheless and he subsequently renewed his seat at the Lower House at the election. He stood again as candidate for Toledo at the November 2019 general election. This time he failed to earn a seat. On 5 May 2020 Girauta announced his resignation from Ciudadanos, in disagreement with the party stance to vote in favour of the extension of the State of Alarm during the COVID-19 pandemic. Soon after, in June 2020, he declared his former colleagues remaining in Cs to be "traitors" and threatened they "were going to eat his dick by taking turns".

Parliamentary service

*Member, Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (2014–2016) *Member, Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly *Chair of the Committee on Defence (2019)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Girauta, Juan Carlos 1961 births Living people Citizens (Spanish political party) MEPs Members of the 12th Congress of Deputies (Spain) MEPs for Spain 2014–2019 Politicians from Barcelona Spanish Zionists 2004 Madrid train bombings conspiracy theorists Members of the 13th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Spanish opinion journalists Spanish conspiracy theorists