The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Monday the ministers who will be part of his new Government, a mix, as he said, of experience and youth, of continuity and renewal. Nine incumbents fall from the new Executive, five of them socialists, including two from the PSC, two from Podemos, one from Izquierda Unida and one from the commons. Sánchez thanked all of them for their work in an institutional statement at the Moncloa palace. These are the faces that leave the Council of Ministers.
Pilar Llop (Madrid, 1973) replaced Juan Carlos Campo in July 2021 in the Ministry of Justice once the pardons were granted to the leaders of the process and will leave the portfolio to the current Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Cortes and Democratic Memory , Félix Bolaños, who will incorporate Justice into the Presidency and Relations with the Cortes into a super ministry. He inherited the portfolio with the challenge of unblocking the negotiations with the PP to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which has expired since the end of 2018, something that has been left pending for Bolaños, who already carried the weight of this negotiation. Llop, who was president of the Senate between 2019 and 2021, had to correct the law known as the 'only yes is yes' law - promoted by the Ministry of Equality - after the norm allowed more than 1,000 reductions in sentences and more than 100 releases of sexual offenders.
Miquel Iceta (Barcelona, 1960) was appointed Minister of Culture and Sports in July 2021 to replace José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes as a member of the PSC and leaves the Culture portfolio to also Catalan Erenest Urtasun, spokesperson for Sumar. However, the competencies in Sports will be assumed by Pilar Alegría in the Ministry of Education. During her mandate, the Young Cultural Bonus has been approved, a direct aid of 400 euros to those who turn 18 years old to access cultural products and activities. He has also had to deal with the controversy over the non-consensual kiss of the president of the Spanish Football Federation to the national team player Jenifer Hermoso.
José Miñones (Santiago de Compostela, 1972) took office on March 27 after the dismissal of Carolina Darias, who left the portfolio to be the PSOE candidate for mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He leaves office to Mónica García after having put an end to the covid pandemic in Spain last July and after having promoted the right to oncological oblivion for cancer survivors.
Héctor Gómez (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1977) took office on March 27 after the dismissal of Reyes Maroto for his PSOE candidacy for mayor of Madrid. He leaves office to former Barcelona mayor Jordi Hereu (PSC). Among the pending challenges of the last legislature is the Industry Law, a bill whose main objective is to recover industrial strength in the Spanish economy, so that its weight in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reaches 20%. . It was announced by Gómez himself in May but the call for the general elections left it pending.
Raquel Sánchez (Gavà, 1975) was appointed minister in July 2021 when she was mayor of her native town, replacing José Luis Ábalos. As Minister of Transport, she could not push ahead with the expansion of the El Prat Airport, located a short distance from Gavà, due to the opposition of ERC in the Generalitat, when she had closed it with the then vice president and Territory Minister, Jordi Puigneró, (Junts ). She has also had to manage without much success the constant crises of the Barcelona Rodalies network, whose transfer to the Generalitat will now be managed by Óscar Puente as the new Minister of Transport.
Furthermore, at the beginning of 2023, it was learned that the company awarded a contract for the design and manufacture of thirty new trains, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, had realized that the requested measures were not correct, causing the designed trains to fail. They will enter through the existing tunnels in the regions of Asturias and Cantabria. This provoked significant criticism, both from the opposition6 and the governments of both regions. The minister accepted the resignations of the Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel Pardo de Vera Posada, and the president of Renfe, Isaías Táboas. The other part of her ministry, Urban Agenda, will be assumed by Isabel Rodríguez.
Irene Montero (Madrid, 1988) was appointed Minister of Equality in January 2020 in the first coalition government since the Second Republic as part of the Unidas Podemos quota, along with, among others, her partner, the then general secretary of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias. She leaves the Equality portfolio in the hands of the Valladolid socialist Ana Redondo. The ministry has been a source of dispute between Podemos, which claimed it for Montero, both with the PSOE and with Yolanda Díaz's Sumar platform in which Podemos was electorally integrated. But from the beginning the socialists wanted to keep the portfolio with the aim of controlling their legislative agenda that during the last legislative session created serious problems for the Executive, in particular with the approval of the law of only yes it is yes that, with the collaboration of the judges , allowed reductions in sentences and releases of hundreds of rapists, putting the government in the pillory. The refusal to keep the Ministry in the hands of Montero will mean, as anticipated by its founder and former leader Pablo Iglesias last week, the separation of Podemos from the Sumar parliamentary group.
Ione Belarra (Pamplona, 1987), current general secretary of Podemos since Pablo Iglesias left office in March 2021, took charge of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, powers that until then were integrated into the second vice presidency held by the former purple leader. With her absence in the new Government, the absence of Podemos is certified. She, however, leaves the portfolio to an ex-podemite like Pablo Bustinduy, who had been secretary of International of the purple formation but left politics in 2019 troubled by the breakup of Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón. She later identified herself with Errejonism. Belarra has emerged in recent months as a defender of the work of her colleague Montero in Equality and has not stopped demanding this ministry for herself until last week, warning of the consequences it would have for Podemos's relationship with Sumar and the Government leave her out.
Alberto Garzón (Logroño, 1985), like Irene Montero and Yolanda Díaz, entered the first coalition government since the Second Republic, in his case as a member of Izquierda Unida, and has remained in the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, which disappears as such and It is integrated into Social Rights that the former poet Pablo Bustinduy will assume. From his time in the ministry, one will remember the controversy he was involved in before the regional elections in Castilla y Léón when he criticized in an interview the excessive consumption of meat in Spain and macro farms, blaming them for the pressure they generate on the environment and mistreatment. of the animals. The agri-food sector and right-wing and extreme right-wing parties called for his resignation. Pedro Sánchez did not stop it but, upset by the controversy, he said publicly: “A cooked steak is unbeatable.”
Joan Subirats (Barcelona, 1951) was appointed in December 2021 after the voluntary departure of his predecessor Manuel Castells. Subirats, a close collaborator of Ada Colau - he had been the sixth deputy mayor of Culture, Education and Science in Barcelona City Council between 2019 and 2021 -, filled the common quota in the Government, which Ernest Urtasun will now fulfill in Culture. During his mandate, the Cortes Generales approved the university coexistence bill promoted by his predecessor, who had already promoted the new university law that renewed the 2001 law. From now on, Universities will be integrated into the Ministry of Science and Universities, which will direct the Valencian socialist Diana Morant.
