Enrique Santiago

Enrique Fernando Santiago Romero (Madrid, July 18, 1964) is a Spanish politician and lawyer, leader of the Communist Party of Spain since 2018. Between 2021 and 2022 he was Secretary of State for the Agenda 2030.

In 2010 he assumed the Secretariat of Refoundation and Social Movements of Izquierda Unida (IU). He has been a member of the IU Federal Executive Commission from 2004 to 2015 and of the PCE Executive Committee from 2008 to 2015. He was also Secretary General of the Union of Young Communists of Spain (UJCE) between 1990 and 1993.

In the international arena, he has highlighted his role as a member of the FARC legal team in the peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos, which began in 2012 and culminated in 2016 with the signing of the Agreement on Peace. This agreement was rejected in the first instance in its first signing in September 2016 in the plebiscite held on October 2 of that year, which led to the renegotiation of the agreement and approval in congress for its subsequent final signing on November 23, 2016. 2016 at the Teatro Colón.

Since the early 1990s, he has participated as a lawyer for the prosecution in various cases: on the military dictatorship in Argentina, in the Scilingo Case; he was part of the popular accusation against the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet; and in Spain in the case of CIA Flights; in that of José Couso; and in the Bárcenas case. In 2004 he was the spokesperson for the organization of international observers of the National Electoral Council of Venezuela during the recall referendum of that year.

He was general secretary of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid until 2006 and later general secretary of IEPALA.

Political career

He has a degree in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Master's Degree in Management and Administration of Foundations and Non-Profit Entities from the Autonomous University of Madrid, a Master's Degree in Financial and Tax Law (CEF), a Diploma in Labor Law and Social Security (CEF) and in International Humanitarian Law and Asylum and Refuge Law, from the Carlos III University of Madrid.

He began his political activism in the Young Communist Collectives, and later in the Union of Young Communists of Spain (UJCE), an organization of which he was general secretary from 1990 to 1992.

In December 2004, at the VIII Extraordinary Federal Assembly of the IU, he disputed the General Coordination of the IU in primaries against Gaspar Llamazares with the support of the leadership of the PCE and the UJCE and obtaining 38% of the votes. Since then, he has been part of the management bodies of the IU and the PCE.

In 2008 he was part of the candidacy supported by the PCE and headed by Cayo Lara and after his victory, in the remodeling of Izquierda Unida that he carried out in 2010, assuming until 2014 the Secretariat of Refoundation and Social Movements of IU with the objective of broadening the training base.

He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Spain from 2008 to 2015.

In 2015 he was a candidate in the primary elections on the Madrid list of Ahora en Común, to run in the general elections, being elected number one on the list.

On April 8, 2018, he was elected by the Central Committee, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, with 82 votes in favor and one against, replacing José Luis Centella who assumed the restored position of President of the PCE.

Candidate number 3 to the Congress of Deputies for Madrid on the list of the United We Can coalition for the general elections of April 2019, he was elected a member of the lower house, revalidating the position and the seat in the general elections in November of the same year.

In April 2021, he replaced Ione Belarra as head of the Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda until July 2022, when Lilith Verstrynge took office.

In the 2023 general elections, he was named number one to the Congress of Deputies for the Cordoba constituency within Sumar (coalition).

Trajectory as a lawyer

A lawyer with extensive experience and member of the Human Rights Department of Izquierda Unida, since the early 1990s he has been part of international legal teams. In 1996 at the National Court of Spain he participated in the legal team of the popular accusation that promoted the cases against the military dictatorship in Argentina, he participated in the legal team of the Scilingo Case; He was part of the popular accusation against the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity, presented by Izquierda Unida in October 1998.

He has also been a lawyer for the Private Prosecution exercised by the Couso Permuy family in the case of the murder in 2003, during the Iraq war, of the journalist José Couso. He has been part of the team that filed the lawsuit for the secret flights of the CIA in 2006; in 2007 in the lawsuit against George W. Bush and other US leaders over the situation of the Guantánamo prisoners; in the lawsuit over the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2010; and he is a lawyer for private prosecution and for Izquierda Unida in the so-called Bárcenas case (2013).

From 2000 to November 2006 he was general secretary of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) an organization to which he remains linked as an individual member and member of its assembly. From 2004 to 2005 he was vice president of the Spanish Federation Human Rights and from 2007 to 2010 he was Secretary General of the Institute of Political Studies for Latin America and Africa (IEPALA).

In 2004, he was the spokesperson for the organization of international observers of the National Electoral Council of Venezuela during the recall referendum of the same year against Hugo Chávez.

Given his track record and his knowledge of international law, in 2012 it was Norway, the country that facilitated the peace negotiations, that selected him to be part of the team of lawyers for the negotiations, assigning him to the FARC team. Enrique Santiago was linked to the organization "Colombians and Colombians for Peace" and the Colombian lawyer, activist and politician Piedad Córdoba proposed his name, he explains in an interview. As part of the legal team, he played an important role in the elaboration of the new system of Special Jurisdiction for Peace, JEP.

He is a member of the Forum of Left Lawyers, of the Democratic Lawyers Network (FAI-RADE), an association of which he was president until 2018. He is a member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Jurists, since 2013 to now.

Positions

In the political sphere, Santiago is considered a representative of the wing most favorable to the IU overcoming its usual party dynamics to become a political-social movement that transcends its current configuration and broadens its social base.