Leopoldo López Gil (; born 20 October 1944) is a Spanish-Venezuelan politician who was elected as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

Political career

López Gil is the father of Venezuelan dissident

Leopoldo López Leopoldo Eduardo López Mendoza (born 29 April 1971) is a Venezuelan opposition leader. López was elected mayor of the Chacao Municipality of Caracas in the 2000 Venezuelan regional elections, regional elections held in July 2000. He is the N ...

. He was granted Spanish citizenship by the Government of

Mariano Rajoy Mariano Rajoy Brey (, ; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a 2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy, vote of no confidence ousted his government. A m ...

in December 2015. He ran 12th in the People's Party (PP) list for the

2019 European Parliament election in Spain The 2019 European Parliament election in Spain was held on Sunday, 26 May 2019, as part of the 2019 European Parliament election, EU-wide election to elect the Ninth European Parliament, 9th European Parliament. All 54 seats allocated to Spain ( ...

in replacement of

Ángel Garrido Ángel Garrido García (born 7 April 1964) is a Spanish politician who served as President of the Community of Madrid between April 2018 and April 2019. He was a member of the People's Party until 24 April 2019, only four days ahead of the 20 ...

, who renounced to be a PP candidate and went to support

Citizens Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality; ...

. López Gil has been a

since the 2019 European elections. In parliament, he has since been serving on the

Subcommittee on Human Rights The Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI, after the French name ''Sous-commission des droits de l'homme du Parlement européen'') is a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament. It is responsible for issues of human ...

. In addition to his committee assignments, he is part of the parliament's delegations to the EU-Chile Joint Parliamentary Committee and to the

Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) is a trans-national body of 150 Parliamentarians from Europe and Latin America. It was established in 2006 to bolster EU-Latin American relations. It was described by Benita Ferrero-Waldner ...

Political positions

In a joint letter with 15 other MEPs from various political groups, López Gil urged the

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP) is the chief co-ordinator and representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) within the European Un ...

Josep Borrell Josep Borrell Fontelles (; born 24 April 1947) is a Spanish politician who served as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission from 2019 to 2024. A member of the Spani ...

in early 2021 to replace the European Union's ambassador to

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

for allegedly siding with the country's Communist leadership.Hans von der Burchard (February 25, 2021)
MEPs urge EU to fire ambassador to Cuba
''

Politico Europe ''Politico Europe'' (stylized as ''POLITICO Europe'') is the European edition of the American news organization '' Politico'' reporting on political affairs of the European Union. Its headquarters are located in Brussels with additional offices in ...

''.

References

Living people MEPs for Spain 2019–2024 People's Party (Spain) MEPs 1944 births Leopoldo López {{Spain-MEP-stub