Josep Borrell Fontelles (born April 24, 1947) is a Catalan, Spanish politician. He has been President of the European Parliament since July 20, 2004. Elected for the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), federated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), he sits with the Party of European Socialists group, and is the leader of the Spanish delegation.

In the presidential vote, out of 700 MEPs he received an absolute majority with 388 votes at the first ballot. The other two candidates were the Polish Liberal Bronislaw Geremek (208 votes) and the French communist Francis Wurtz (51 votes). As part of a deal with the conservative faction in the parliament, the EPP, he will be succeeded as president of the parliament by the German conservative politician Hans-Gert Pöttering in the second part of this term, which is in 2007.

Background

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He was born and grew up in the village of La Pobla de Segur where his father owned a small bakery. His very basic education was supplemented by reading, but was able to complete his secondary in Lleida. He went to Barcelona to study industrial accounting, but left after a year in 1965 to go and study aeronautical engineering at the Technical University of Madrid, graduating in 1969. During this time he also began to study economic sciences at the Complutense University. In the summer of 1969 he stayed on a kibbutz in Israel, where he met his future French wife Carolina Mayeur, from whom he is now divorced. In 1975 he worked in Madrid as an engineer for the state petroleum company, joining PSOE in the same year even though it was an illegal party until February 1977. Before his election to the European Parliament. In 1979 he became a member of the Madrid Parliament until 1982 when the new PSOE government of Felipe González appointed to a post within the Ministry of Economy with responsibility for fiscal policy.

External links

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• Official biography
• Cidob biography in Spanish

1947 births | Living people | Members of the European Parliament from Spain | PSC affiliates | Presidents of the European Parliament

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