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Alberto Carlos Garzón Espinosa (; born 9 October 1985) is a Spanish former politician and economist. He was the Minister of Consumer Affairs from 2020 to 2023. He has been a member of the
Communist Party of Spain The Communist Party of Spain (; PCE) is a communist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is currently part of Sumar. Two of its politicians are Spanish government ministers: Yolanda Díaz (Minister of L ...
(PCE) and United Left (''Izquierda Unida'', IU) since 2003. In the 2011 general election, he was elected as an MP within that coalition. He has been the Secretary of Constituent Process in IU from 2014 to 2016, and in 2015, he was elected as an IU candidate for that year's general election. He is a researcher at Pablo de Olavide University in
Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...
.


Biography


Family origins and youth

He is the son of Alberto Garzón Blanco, a teacher of Geography and History in Málaga, and Isabel Espinosa Casares, a pharmacist from Cenicero,
La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...
. The two met on a summer trip in
Rincón de la Victoria Rincón de la Victoria () is a municipality in the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia in southern Spain. It is the municipality with the highest well-being in the province of Malaga, according to the Synthetic Indicator o ...
. He spent his early years in
Logroño Logroño ( , , ) is the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja (Spain), La Rioja, Spain. Located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, primarily in the right (South) bank of the Ebro River, Logroño has historically been a place of pa ...
, where he was born. When he was three, the family moved to the Sevilian town of
Marchena ''Marchena'' is a genus of jumping spiders only found in the United States. Its only described species, ''M. minuta'', dwells on the barks of conifers along the west coast, especially California, Washington and Nevada.Maddison, Wayne. 1995. ...
, where his father had obtained a job as a professor. In 1994, the family returned to Rincón de la Victoria. Garzón attended the Manuel Laza Palacios elementary school and the Ben Al Jatib secondary school. He liked
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
and attempted, unsuccessfully, to make his way into Sports Club Rincón.


University stage

Garzón initially studied Administration and Management of Corporations at the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences of the University of Málaga, but the following year, he changed to Economics. When he was 18 years old, he joined United Left The Greens-Andalucía. In 2004, he participated in the foundation of Students for a Critical Economy, an association of which he was president until 2008, and that was in the same line as the
Post-autistic economics The post-autistic economics movement (), or movement of students for the reform of economics teaching (), is a political movement that criticises neoclassical economics and advocates for pluralism in economics. The movement gained attention afte ...
movement born in France a few years earlier. The purpose of that group was academic and militant, since it denounced "the unique thinking and the intellectual emptiness that reigns in the teaching of economics" at the same time as it participated in social movements such like the Social Forum ''Another Malaga'' of 2004. The association would incorporate first as "Left-wing Students", a university association of a left-wing and anticapitalist nature, and later, in the platform of "Critical Students", a union of many progressive groups. Criticism Economy Malaga stood in the students' elections, obtaining 64% of the votes in 2008. IU listed Garzón fifth on their candidate list for the
2007 Spanish local elections The 2007 Spanish local elections were held on Sunday, 27 May 2007, to elect all 66,131 councillors in the 8,111 municipalities of Spain and all 1,038 seats in 38 Provincial deputation (Spain), provincial deputations. The elections were held simu ...
. Garzón later earned his Master's in International Economy and Development at the School of Business & Economic Sciences at the
Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...
. It was here that Garzón Sampedro, who Garzón would later publicly thank for being the basis of his school of thought. Other politicians from UL have enrolled within the university's School of Business & Economic Sciences, including Eddy Sánchez, as well as several economic advisors to
Unidos Podemos Unidas Podemos (), formerly called Unidos Podemos () and also known in English as United We Can, was a democratic socialist electoral alliance formed by Podemos, United Left, and other left-wing to far-left parties in May to contest the 2016 S ...
.


Member of the Congress of Deputies

Garzón was first elected as a Deputy in the Spanish Parliament on the IU list for Málaga, following the
2011 Spanish general election A General elections in Spain, general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 20 November 2011, to elect the members of the 10th . All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate of Spain, ...
. He was the youngest member of the House of Deputies during that session. In January 2013, he was elected as a member of IU's Federal Executive Committee.


Minister of Consumer Affairs

Garzón was appointed Minister of Consumer Affairs on 13 January 2020. In October 2021, Garzón announced that the ministry would ban the advertising of several categories of junk food to children under 16. Such advertising would be forbidden on television, on the radio, online, in movie theaters, and in newspapers. Affected foods include
candy Candy, alternatively called sweets or lollies, is a Confectionery, confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, also called ''sugar confectionery'', encompasses any sweet confection, including chocolate, chewing gum ...
,
energy bar Energy bars are supplemental bars containing cereals, micronutrients, and flavor ingredients intended to supply quick food energy. Because most energy bars contain added protein (nutrient), protein, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, and other nutri ...
s,
cookie A cookie is a sweet biscuit with high sugar and fat content. Cookie dough is softer than that used for other types of biscuit, and they are cooked longer at lower temperatures. The dough typically contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of ...
s,
cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...
,
juice Juice is a drink made from the extraction or Cold-pressed juice, pressing of the natural liquid contained in fruit and vegetables. It can also refer to liquids that are flavored with concentrate or other biological food sources, such as meat ...
,
energy drink An energy drink is a type of non-alcoholic psychoactive functional beverage containing stimulant compounds, usually caffeine (at a higher concentration than ordinary soda pop) and taurine, which is marketed as reducing tiredness and improving pe ...
s, and
ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...
. The ban is to take effect during 2022. In 2022 Garzón triggered controversy by criticizing factory farming, emphasizing its environmental damage and poor-quality meat exports. He praised traditional grazing as more sustainable but faced backlash from the
meat industry The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is ...
, opposition politicians, and senior members of the ruling Socialist Workers party. Garzón reiterated his concerns on pollution and emissions from factory farming and excessive meat consumption. Spain's livestock industry depends on exports, and his comments received a strong negative reaction from various quarters. A report linked intensive pork farming to an environmental disaster in Spain, which led to the deaths of thousands of fish.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garzon, Alberto 1985 births Communist Party of Spain politicians Leaders of political parties in Spain Living people Marxian economists Members of the 10th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the 11th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the 12th Congress of Deputies (Spain) People from Logroño United Left (Spain) politicians Members of the 13th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the 14th Congress of Deputies (Spain)