Pasqual Maragall

Pasqual Maragall Mira (Barcelona, January 13, 1941) is a Spanish jurist, economist and politician. He was president of the Generalitat of Catalonia between 2003 and 2006. He served as mayor of Barcelona for 15 years, between 1982 and 1997. Under his mayoralty, the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games were held.

He was a member of the Socialist Party of Catalonia between 1978 and 2007.

Biography

Grandson of the Catalan poet Joan Maragall, he was the son of Jordi Maragall. Born in Barcelona in 1941, he graduated in Law and Economic Sciences from the University of Barcelona in 1965. He joined the Barcelona City Council's urban planning department that same year as an economist. In 1973 he graduated in International Economics and Urban Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York and in 1978 he received a doctorate from the Autonomous University of Barcelona with a thesis on urban land prices. He is also an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Reggio Calabria and from Johns Hopkins University. His brother, Ernest Maragall, has also held important positions in politics.

His political life began in 1961 in the Front Obrer de Catalunya during the Franco dictatorship; later he would join the Socialist Convergence of Catalonia, and later in the Socialist Party of Catalonia, with which he would be elected councilor for Barcelona in the first democratic municipal elections and where he would hold the position of deputy mayor of the Administrative and Finance Reform.

Mayor of Barcelona (1982-1997)

Photographed together with Felipe González in La Moncloa in September 1989.

On December 2, 1982, he would take office as mayor of Barcelona, replacing Narcís Serra, a position for which he would be re-elected in 1983, 1987, 1991 and 1995. His position as mayor was marked by preparation and execution of the 1992 Olympic Games, in Barcelona. Other notable events of that period were his position in the Presidency of the Council of Municipalities and Regions of Europe and his vice-presidency and presidency of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union, between 1996 and 1998. He was also the founder of Eurocities, a group of six large cities in the Western Mediterranean area and Vice President for Europe of the International Union of Local Authorities and the World Federation of United Cities.

In 1997 he handed over the mayoralty of Barcelona to his deputy mayor Joan Clos and moved to Rome, where he worked as a teacher for a year.

Candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat (1999)

On June 25, 1998, from the viewpoint of the Collserola Communications Tower, he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the Generalitat of Catalonia in the elections of October 17, 1999, elections in which he concurred as a candidate for a coalition made up of the Partido de los Socialistas de Catalunya and Ciutadans pel Canvi, and which also included Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds in the constituencies of Tarragona, Girona and Lleida. Despite the fact that he was the candidate with the most votes, surpassing the hitherto unbeaten Jordi Pujol obtained fewer seats than his adversary due to their distribution by constituency. This circumstance allowed Pujol to be re-elected president of the Generalitat de Catalunya with the support of the Popular Party and the abstention of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya.

President of the Generalitat (2003-2006)

Photograph by Maragall during his presidency at the Generalitat

The candidacy headed by Pasqual Maragall was once again the most voted in the elections of November 16, 2003, despite which Convergence and Union was once again the candidacy with the most representatives in the parliament of Catalonia. However, for the first time since 1980, the center-left formations that supported the candidacy of Josep Maria Vallès for the presidency of Parliament in 1999, had a majority. Thus, the signing of the Tinell Pact together with Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and the red-green coalition ICV-EUiA allowed him to be sworn in as president of the Generalitat, a position he took office on December 20, 2003. ERC's vote against the new Statute of autonomy for Catalonia, considering it insufficient, led to the dismissal of its advisers in the Government of Catalonia, which Maragall remodeled.

On June 21, 2006, eight years after the announcement of his first candidacy and after the victory of the yes with a short participation in the referendum on the Statute, he announced, in an institutional declaration, that he would not repeat a third time as the PSC candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, being replaced by the until then Minister of Industry and first secretary of the PSC, José Montilla.

In the extraordinary plenary session of the Catalan congress held on February 24, 2005, due to the collapse in the Carmelo neighborhood in Barcelona due to the subway works, while Maragall was president of the Generalitat, left a message in public. He turned to the head of the opposition, Artur Mas (of the then Convergence and Union federation), and told him, referring to alleged commission charges in the awarding of works:

“Vostès have a problem, and this problem is diu three per cent” (You have a problem, and that problem is called three percent). Pasqual Maragall to Artur Mas, in the Parliament, February 24, 2005.

This expression made sense more than ten years later, on September 1, 2015, when the Civil Guard intervened CatDem, the foundation of the CDC (after the breakup of the federation with UDC), for the collection of " bites" of 3%.

Leaving the Government and later life

After the departure of the Government, Maragall left the presidency of the PSC on June 11, 2007 to work on the project of the European Democratic Party, as he has stated on various occasions; thus, in 1998 he recorded the Partit Català d'Europa. He has also continued to make statements on state policy, among them, saying that so much effort to reform the Statute "was not worth it" or publishing a Letter to friends where he gave his opinion on different issues: Spain and federal Europe, the recovery of the metropolitan government of Barcelona or the future of political parties in Europe.

In October 2007, he declared in a program on Cataluña Radio that he had abandoned the Socialist Party of Catalonia, while stating that it had been an error to trust the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. He said he felt abandoned by Zapatero in this legislature. He declared that the former Defense Minister, José Bono, was the top favorite for the PSOE candidacy, but that between him and Alfonso Guerra they managed to win Zapatero, but he considered that Zapatero had become a weak president, and a " felipista", by exercising a centralist government. He in turn assured that the then president of the Generalitat , José Montilla, had supported José Bono in the fight for the candidacy for the Socialist General Secretariat.

Pasqual Maragall during the presentation of your blog.

Pasqual Maragall declared on October 20, 2007 that he had been suffering from early Alzheimer's disease for months. Shortly after, he launched his official website.

In March 2007 he had been chosen "Catalan of the Year".

Fruit of his European vocation, in 2007 Pasqual Maragall created the Catalonia Europe Foundation. Currently the "Catalonia Europe Foundation - Llegat Pasqual Maragall" develops a work inspired by the basic lines of thought and political action of its founder, among them, the active involvement of Catalan society in a more united Europe, the reinforcement of the global role of cities as spaces for social transformation and dialogue between Catalonia, Spain and Europe.

In April 2008, the Pasqual Maragall Foundation for Alzheimer's Research was created, which promotes scientific research for the prevention and care of this disease and other related neurodegenerative diseases.

In 2010, a documentary film made by Carles Bosch commissioned by Maragall himself was released, in which Pasqual Maragall and his family are followed for two years, in their day-to-day life and in their fight against Alzheimer's (Bicycle, spoon, apple). The work was the winner of the Goya award for the best documentary film of 2011.

In 2017 Pasqual Maragall: Thought and Action was published, coordinated by Jaume Claret and edited by RBA. From the point of view of various academics and collaborators of Maragall, the book deals with the decisive axes of his career: the city and the territory, his vision of Catalonia towards Spain and towards the world, government policies and the 1992 Olympic Games., among others.

In 2020 Maragall i la Lluna was released, a documentary film directed by Josep M. Mañé and Francesca Català. The documentary is based on the experience of Lluna, a girl who was 8 years old when, in 1993, the then mayor of Barcelona moved into her house to learn more about the reality of the Roquetes neighborhood. Twenty-five years later, Lluna begins a search that begins with the memory of those days and leads her to discover, through relatives, acquaintances and politicians, a fundamental figure for the development of Barcelona and the present of Catalonia.

Thought

The center of his political thought lies in the concept of "differential federalism".

Works

• By Barcelona (1987)
• Redoing Barcelona (1990)
• Barcelona, the re-founded city (1991)
• Town halls (1997)
• Next Europe: Europe, regions and cities (1999)
• The Origins of the Future (2002)
• The change that Catalonia needs (2003)