Prominent personalities from the political and economic world, including colleagues from the PP and representatives of other parties, such as Ciudadanos and the PSOE, have come this Friday to say their last goodbye to Josep Piqué, former minister and former leader of the Catalan PP who died in Madrid at the age of 68 . The funeral chapel opened at 9:00 a.m. in the M-30 Funeral Home, where the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, expressed the city's condolences for the loss of "a statesman" and a "faithful representative of the best humanism".
Along with the mayor, the former president of the Government and the PP, José María Aznar, the governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, and the former ministers of the PP, Rodrigo Rato, Jaime Mayor Oreja and Ana Mato. In statements to the media present, Aznar has highlighted Piqué's "intelligence", with which he "carried out all his duties" in his government. Aznar also lamented the loss, especially taking into account "the current situation in Spain", when "more people like Josep Piqué would be needed".
For his part, Mayor Oreja has highlighted who was his partner in the Government who had "the courage to be part of a Cabinet of members of the PP", although he was independent. "He was an excellent colleague, from a personal and political point of view, and he was undoubtedly an extraordinary spokesman for the Government", he recalled.
Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, who presided over the Catalan PP from 2008 to 2017, after Piqué did it from 2002 to 2007, has also attended. "He was my boss, my teacher, a great statesman, a statesman, a person loyal to the Constitution, defender of its principles and who has been a benchmark for everyone in Catalonia", Sánchez-Camacho told reporters, in addition to stressing that Piqué was always a person "of dialogue, harmony and understanding".
The funeral home has also been attended by the deputy of Ciudadanos Miguel Gutiérrez, for whom it is "a sad day" because "a reference is leaving", someone with a "long-term vision" who warned some time before what "the drift of Catalan independence" was leading to ". The deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, also from Ciudadanos, has also attended the funeral home.
For her part, the socialist Trinidad Jiménez, who was Foreign Minister a decade after Piqué was, has told the press that she is "very sorry" for his death: "A great minister and above all a person with whom one could talk and dialogue". "If there is something that I can highlight about him, it is the respect that he always maintained for the different, something that I always appreciated a lot, the truth is that he had a lot of personal affection for him and his wife", the journalist Gloria Lomana, has pointed out Jimenez.
The funeral chapel will remain open until 2:00 p.m. for the family, businessmen and politicians to say their last goodbye to a key figure in Aznar's executives, where he headed the Foreign, Industry and Science portfolios, and was a government spokesman.
The former minister died this Thursday at the age of 68 at the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, according to what his own family announced in a statement and confirmed several charges from the PP, who, like politicians of different signs and personalities from the business world, They expressed their condolences and praised his legacy and career.
