Pasqual Maragall
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Pasqual Maragall i Mira (; born 13 January 1941) is a Spanish politician and former President of Generalitat de Catalunya. He had previously been Mayor of
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
, from 1982 to 1997, and helped run the city's successful
Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
bid.


Early life and education

He was born in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
in 1941 as the third of eight siblings. His grandfather was the Catalan poet
Joan Maragall Joan Maragall i Gorina (; 10 October 1860 in Barcelona – 20 December 1911) was a Spanish poet, journalist and translator, the foremost member of the ''modernisme'' movement in literature. His manuscripts are preserved in the Joan Maragall ...
. In 1965, he married
Diana Garrigosa Diana Garrigosa i Laspeñas (10 November 1944 – 10 February 2020) was a Catalan economist and teacher, wife of 127th President of the Generalitat of Catalonia Pasqual Maragall and president of Pasqual Maragall Foundation since its establishment ...
, and he has two daughters and a son. He was an active member of the Workers' Front of Catalonia and joined the left-wing anti-Franco movement Popular Liberation Front. He studied law and economics at the
University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...
between 1957 and 1964. In 1965, after his studies, he joined the Specialist Office of
Barcelona City Council The City Council of Barcelona ( Catalan: ''Ajuntament de Barcelona''; Spanish: ''Ayuntamiento de Barcelona'') is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the municipality of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. In terms of political structure ...
as an economist, work he combined with giving classes in economic theory at the
Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; , es, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; UAB), is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. ...
, acting as assistant to the professor, . He also cooperated with the Studies Service of the , run by . Between 1971 and 1973, he lived in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where he gained a master of arts in economics from the
New School University The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
.


Beginnings in politics

In 1973, he came back to Barcelona and returned to the
Barcelona City Council The City Council of Barcelona ( Catalan: ''Ajuntament de Barcelona''; Spanish: ''Ayuntamiento de Barcelona'') is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the municipality of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. In terms of political structure ...
and to the UAB, where he gave classes on urban economics and international economics as a temporary assistant lecturer. One year earlier, he supported ''Convergència Socialista de Catalunya'', one of the founding groups of the PSC. In 1978, at the Economics Faculty of the UAB, he presented his doctoral thesis ''The prices of urban land, The case of Barcelona (1948–1978)''. In 1978, he was a researcher and guest professor at the
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
. This university would later appoint him doctor honoris causa.


First elections

He joined the PSC electoral list in the first democratic municipal election for
Barcelona City Council The City Council of Barcelona ( Catalan: ''Ajuntament de Barcelona''; Spanish: ''Ayuntamiento de Barcelona'') is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the municipality of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. In terms of political structure ...
in 1979 and this party won the most votes at the ballot box. His friend
Narcís Serra Narcís Serra i Serra (born 30 May 1943) is a Spanish economist and politician, serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 1991 to 1995. Born in Barcelona in 1943, he was one of the leading figures of Catalan socialism during the Spanish tr ...
became Mayor while he became ''tinent d'alcalde'' (Deputy Mayor) for Administrative Reform, and later for Taxation. On 1 December 1982 he succeeded Narcís Serra as
Mayor of Barcelona This is a list of mayors of Barcelona since 1916. Mayors before Franco *... * Bartomeu Robert i Yarzábal (1899 - 1901) *... * Manuel Rius i Rius (1916 - 1917) * Antoni Martínez i Domingo (1917 - 1917) * Lluís Duran i Ventosa (1917 - 1917) * ...
, since Serra was appointed
minister of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a Cabinet (government), cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from coun ...
by the new Socialist government of
Felipe González Felipe González Márquez (; born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish lawyer, professor, and politician, who was the Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997, and the 3rd Prime Minister of Spain since the ...
. In 1986, Barcelona was chosen to host the
1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...
Accordingly, the city's mayorPasqual Maragallpresided over the organising committee (COOB'92). The Olympics provided the city with sorely needed infrastructure. Another Maragall initiative, the
2004 Universal Forum of Cultures The 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures - ( ca, Fòrum Universal de les Cultures, es, Fórum Universal de las Culturas) was a 141-day international event that took place in the ''Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB)'' and its surr ...
, exhibited the same "top-down" approach. It is widely recognised, however, that the '92 Games helped Barcelona to redefine itself as one of the great cities of Europe. From 1991 to 1997, he was President of the Council of Municipalities and Regions of Europe. He was also Vice-President of the
International Union of Local Authorities United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) is an umbrella international organisation for cities, local and regional governments, and municipal associations throughout the world that is concerned with representing and defending the interests of l ...
and President of the
Committee of the Regions The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) is the European Union's (EU) assembly of local and regional representatives that provides sub-national authorities (i.e. regions, counties, provinces, municipalities and cities) with a direct voice w ...
of the European Union from 1996 to 1998.


Recent years

In 1997, Pasqual Maragall resigned as Barcelona's mayor and returned to university lecturing in Rome and New York City. Two years later he came back to active politics and was elected as the PSC- CpC candidate for the presidency of the
Generalitat Generalitat (, literally in English 'Generality') is the name of two major medieval and early modern political institutions and their modern-day analogues in Kingdom of Spain. The ancient Principality of Catalonia and the Kingdom of Valencia were ...
in the 1999 election. In 2000, he was elected President of the
Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya The Socialists' Party of Catalonia ( ca, Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, PSC–PSOE official acronym) is a social-democratic political party in Catalonia, Spain, resulting from the merger of three parties: the Socialist Party of Catalonia ...
(PSC-PSOE), and was a member of the
Catalan Parliament The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...
from 1988 to 1995. From 1999 to 2003, he presided over the PSC- CpC parliamentary group. On 16 December 2003, Maragall was elected President of the Generalitat by the Catalan Parliament after cliff-hanger negotiations with the ERC and ICV parties. He finally took office on 20 December. While generally popular as Mayor of Barcelona, Maragall's career as President of the coalition government was marked by a series of crises. A particularly severe one involved Chief Councilor Carod's "secret" trip to France to unofficially negotiate with
ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
. Others include the stormy negotiations over a new Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia in which Maragall and the PSC hovered between a nationalist stance and giving in to the central government pressure; the collapse of an entire city block in Barcelona's Carmel district following poorly planned and executed tunnelling work; and a schemesupported by Maragall's governmentto build a tunnel for the
AVE ''Alta Velocidad Española'' (''AVE'') is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE s ...
high-speed train under the shaky foundations of Barcelona's 19th-century city centre. In October 2005 Maragall met with objections regarding his plans for reshuffling the cabinet without consulting either his coalition partners or his party. The President's brother,
Ernest Maragall Ernest Maragall i Mira (born 5 January 1943, in Barcelona) is a Spanish economist, politician, member of the Parliament of Catalonia and former Minister of Foreign Action, Institutional Relations and Transparency of Catalonia. He was previously ...
, was tipped for a ministerial post in the reshuffle. Ernest, who held the post of Executive Secretary, was seen by critics as an ''
apparatchik __NOTOC__ An apparatchik (; russian: аппара́тчик ) was a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Soviet government ''apparat'' ( аппарат, apparatus), someone who held any position ...
'', and whipped up a storm of protest in June 2005 when he opposed plans to make Catalonia's future anti-fraud department independent of the government. Pasqual Maragall's pledges to fight corruption and nepotism in public administration were one of the key planks in his 2003 campaign. On 21 June 2006, Maragall announced that he would not be standing for reelection (see 2006 Catalan Parliament election). He offered his support to new President
José Montilla José Montilla Aguilera (born 15 January 1955 in Iznájar, Andalusia, Spain) is a Spanish politician who is currently a member of the Spanish Senate. He was the 128th President of Generalitat de Catalunya. He became the First Secretary of th ...
amongst controversy over Montilla's non-Catalan heritage, stating that it did not make Catalonia "less Catalan", and later commented that "our new homeland is Europe". He later stated "our new path is the Mediterranean". On 19 October 2007, it was announced that he would not pay his PSOE membership fee anymore, ending three decades of activity within the party. The following day, he announced that he had been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
and that he was creating the Pasqual Maragall Foundation to fight against the illness. In 2007 he founded the Catalunya Europa Foundation, which develops work inspired by the thought and political work of Maragall, including the active involvement of Catalan society in a more united Europe, the global role of cities as spaces for social transformation, and lasting dialogue between Catalonia, Spain and Europe. In 2017 a collection of essays edited by Jaume Claret, ''Pasqual Maragall: Pensament i acció'', was published by RBA Libros. Academics and colleagues of the politician discuss the essential points of his career: the city and the region, his vision of Catalonia's place in Spain and in the world, government policies and the 1992 Olympic Games, among others. In 2020, a documentary film directed by Josep M. Mañé and Francesca Català, ''Maragall i la Lluna'', was released. The documentary starts with the experience of Lluna, a girl who was eight years old when, in 1993, the then-mayor of Barcelona moved into her home to better understand the reality of the Roquetes neighborhood. Twenty-five years later, Lluna begins a search that starts with the memory of those days and leads her to discover Maragall through family members, acquaintances and politicians.


References


External links


Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maragall, Pasqual 1941 births Living people People with Alzheimer's disease Politicians from Barcelona Mayors of Barcelona City Council Socialists' Party of Catalonia politicians Presidents of the Government of Catalonia Presidents of the Organising Committees for the Olympic Games Recipients of the Olympic Order Presidents of the European Committee of the Regions Fulbright alumni