Pasqual Maragall i Mira (born January 13, 1941) is the 127th President of Generalitat de Catalunya (the autonomous system of government of the Spanish Region of Catalonia). He has previously been Mayor of Barcelona, from 1982 to 1997, and helped run the city's successful Olympic bid.

The early years

He was born in Barcelona in 1941 as the third of a total of eight brothers and sisters. His grandfather is the catalan poet Joan Maragall. In 1965, he got married to Diana Garrigosa, and he has two daughters and a son. He was an active member of the Front Obrer de Catalunya (Workers' Front of Catalonia) and joined the left-wing anti-Franco movement Frente de Liberación Popular (Popular Liberation Front). He studied Laws and Economics at the UB between 1957 and 1964.

After his studies, in 1965, he entered the Specialist Office of Barcelona City Council as an economist, work he combined with the giving classes in economic theory at the UAB, acting as assistant to the professor, Josep M. Bricall. He also cooperated with the Studies Service of the financial institution, Banco Urquijo, run by Ramon Trias Fargas.

He went to live to New York in 1971, and lived there until 1973, where he gained a Master of Arts in Economics from the New School University.

Beginnings in politics

In 1973 he returned to Barcelona, where came back to the Barcelona City Council and to the UAB, where he gave classes on urban economics and international economics as temporary assistant lecturer. One year before, 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). He ran the PSC campaign in Barcelona, his party won the most votes at the ballot box, together with Narcís Serra and represented the party before the control committee of the Council. In 1978, he was a researcher and guest professor at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This university would later appoint him doctor honoris causa.

First elections

He joined the PSC electoral list in the first municipal elections for Barcelona City Council in 1979. He became tinent d'alcalde (Deputy Mayor) for Administrative Reform and then afterwards, for Tax. He succeeded Narcís Serra as Mayor of Barcelona on the December 2 1982.

In 1986, the Catalan capital was chosen to host the 1992 Olympic Games after behind-the-scenes dealings with another Catalan, Juan Antonio Samaranch, then President of the IOC and former President of Sport in General Franco's Fascist government. Accordingly, the city's major — Pasqual Maragall — presided over the organising committee (COOB'92). The Olympic's provided the city with sorely-needed infrastructure but there was virtually no public consultation over the plans. Another Maragall initiative, the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures exhibited the same "top-down" approach.

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 and President of the Committee of Regions of the European Union from 1996 to 1998.

Last years

In 1997, Pasqual Maragall resigned from Barcelona's Mayor and returned to university lecturing in Rome and New York. However, he came back to active politics and was elected as the PSC-CpC candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat in 1999.

In the year 2000, he was elected President of the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC-PSOE), and was a member of the Catalan Parliament from 1988 to 1995. From 1999 to 2003, he presided the PSC-CpC parliamentary group.

On the 16th of December 2003, Pasqual 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 the 20th of December. While generally popular as Mayor of Barcelona, Maragall's career as President of the coalition government has been marked by a series of crises. A particularly severe one involved Vice-President Carod's "secret" trip to France to unofficially negotiate with ETA. Others include: the stormy negotiations over a new Statute for Catalonia in which Maragall and the PSC havered between a nationalist stance and caving in to central government pressure; the collapse of an entire city block in Barcelona's Carmel district following poorly-planned and executed tunnelling work; and a scheme - supported by Maragall's government - to build a tunnel for the AVE high-speed train under the shaky foundations of Barcelona's 19th century city centre. Fifty thousand citizens have banded together in an unprecedented mass movement to oppose the AVE plans. The latest crisis (October 2005) involves Maragall's plans for remodelling the cabinet without consulting either his coalition partners or his party. Ernest Maragall, the President's controversial brother, is tipped for a ministerial post in the reshuffle. Ernest, who is seen by critics as an apparatchik and currently holds the post of Executive Secretary, whipped up a storm of protest when he recently (June 2005) 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 election campaign.

On 21 June 2006, Maragall announced that he would not be standing for reelection (^*, in Spanish).

External links

• Official website from the President de la Generalitat de Catalunya
• Blog from the President de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Pasqual Maragall

1941 births | Living people | Mayors of Barcelona City Council | PSC affiliates | Presidents of Generalitat de Catalunya | Catalan politicians

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