Rosa Aguilar
Rosa Aguilar Rivero (Córdoba, July 7, 1957) is a Spanish politician and lawyer, who was Minister of Justice and Interior of the Junta de Andalucía and Minister of the Environment, Rural Affairs and Spanish sailor.
She was mayor of Córdoba between 1999 and 2009, for more than two legislatures, being the first woman to hold this public position in the caliphal capital. In 2009 she joined the government of the Junta de Andalucía as Minister of Public Works and Housing and in 2010 the government of Spain as Minister of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs until 2011. From 2015 to 2017 she was Minister of Culture of the Junta de Andalusia.
She has also been a deputy for Córdoba in the Andalusian Parliament and a deputy for Córdoba in Congress. She and she has been second vice president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and president of the Administrative Council of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
Biography
Early Years
He completed his Baccalaureate at the C.D.P. La Sagrada Familia and in the 1974/1975 academic year he began his university studies at the Colegio Universitario de Córdoba. In 1980 he graduated in Law from the University of Seville.
In 1974, at the age of 17, he joined the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and later joined the Comisiones Obreras in 1978. At the end of his university career, he joined the union's legal department until 1985, the year he who, together with other colleagues, set up a law firm dedicated to commercial, labor and matrimonial issues. In 1987, and after being elected councilor of the Córdoba City Council for Izquierda Unida (IU), she left the firm to dedicate herself full time to politics.
She was the right-hand man of Julio Anguita, coordinator of Izquierda Unida for many years. She served as a councilor in the Andalusian city between 1987 and 1991 and a deputy in the Andalusian Parliament between 1990 and 1993. Elected deputy in Congress for Córdoba, She was the visible face of the political formation in the Lower House for seven years, between 1993 and 2000. She left the seat when she was elected mayor of her hometown, to fully focus on this public role.
Mayor of Córdoba (1999-2009)
She was elected mayor of Córdoba in 1999 thanks to a pact with the PSOE (Izquierda Unida obtained nine councilors and the PSOE six; surpassing the 14 councilors of the Popular Party), succeeding Herminio Trigo in office. She repeated it in 2003, this time on her own, winning the municipal elections with 41.8% of the votes and 13 councilors (compared to 12 for the Popular Party and 4 for the PSOE).
Since 2003, she has held the position of second vice-president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP).
In the 2007 municipal elections, his candidacy was, as in 1999, in second place, after the Popular Party, with 35.53% of the votes and 11 councilors (compared to 14 for the PP and 4 for the PSOE). On June 16, she was elected mayor again thanks to a new pact with the PSOE. She held the position until half of the legislature. On April 23, 2009, she resigned from the mayor's office to join the government of the Junta de Andalucía as an independent, as counselor for Public Works and Housing. For this reason she was expelled from Izquierda Unida. After 13 years in municipal political life, she began a new stage, leaving the mayor's office in the hands of a man of her absolute confidence, Andrés Ocaña.
Pioneering Action
Aguilar made the Córdoba City Council the first Spanish public institution to hold an extraordinary plenary meeting against gender violence each month, responding to the request of the Platform against Violence against Women, when violence against women was at a higher rate social dimension.
Controversy
Aguilar and the deputy mayor Rafael Blanco Perea, responsible for urban planning of the Cordovan capital, met in 2007 with responsibilities of the company AENA (Spanish Airports and Air Navigation) to promote the expansion of the aviation facility located 6 kilometers southwest of the city. The expansion of the Córdoba Airport was carried out and in 2014 an audit by the Court of Auditors of the European Union pointed out waste of public money in the expansion of several airports in Spain. Among the outstanding examples, the one in Córdoba was used, given that the project was expected to reach 179,000 annual travelers and in 2014 the venue was used by 7,000 users.
Minister of Public Works and Housing (2009-2010)
On April 23, 2009, Aguilar accepted the position of independent director in the new government of the Junta de Andalucía, chaired by the socialist José Antonio Griñán, successor to Manuel Chaves. She concluded her stage as mayoress of Córdoba and her militancy in Izquierda Unida, whose board described the fact as "unjustifiable personal error"; and she added her to the list of defectors from IU to the PSOE She held the position for a year and a half, when she was called to be minister in October 2010.
Minister of the Environment (2010-2011)
On October 20, 2010, the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, proposed her for the position of Minister of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, replacing Elena Espinosa and as part of the ministerial reform carried out.
On February 21, 2011, she was elected President of the Administrative Council of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi (Kenya).
His most difficult moment in office occurred in 2011, in the so-called "cucumber crisis," with the appearance of an outbreak of hemolytic uremic syndrome in Germany, caused by the fecal bacterium E. coli, which caused 32 deaths. Initially, the German authorities blamed the cucumber of Andalusian origin, an accusation that was proven false.
On December 22, 2011, her term as minister ended.
Cultural Counselor (2015-2017)
In June 2015, she was appointed Minister of Culture in the new government of the Junta de Andalucía formed by President Susana Díaz.
Controversy
In 2015, a controversy arose over the latticework of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. The Ministry of Culture authorized, at the request of the Cabildo, the removal of one of the latticework of the openings of the north wall of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba to facilitate the entry of the Holy Week brotherhoods inside the monument. Despite being advised against by Unesco, the lattice was finally withdrawn in 2017. Following the complaint filed by the heirs of the architect Rafael de la Hoz, designer of the aforementioned lattice, the city's Contentious Administrative Court 4 ruled in 2019 that the The Ministry had acted against its own Heritage Law. The sentence was ratified by the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia in 2020 and by the Supreme Court in 2021, after the appeals presented by the Junta de Andalucía and the Association of Brotherhoods and Brotherhoods of Córdoba.
Political positioning
He maintained a critical stance against some of his coalition's policies, such as the role of Ezker Batua Berdeak (the leader of Izquierda Unida in the Basque Country) in the Basque Government or the participation of EBB in the municipal government of Acción Nacionalista Basque to govern in Mondragón after the municipal elections of 2007. He also questioned the negative position of the IU with respect to the European Constitution.
He was one of the supporters of Gaspar Llamazares as general coordinator of the coalition and had frequent confrontations with the most anti-capitalist wing of the coalition, standing out as the only visible face of Izquierda Unida that declared itself in favor of the parliamentary monarchy. He was a member of the Federal Political Council, the Federal Presidency and the Executive Commission of Izquierda Unida, of which he was responsible for institutional relations, a responsibility that he renewed in the IX Assembly (2008) and from which he ceased when his transition to government was consummated. Andalusian.
After the poor electoral results of Izquierda Unida in the 2008 general elections, his name was mentioned as a possible replacement for Gaspar Llamazares, although given the impossibility that the fraction of which he was a part called Open IU could win, Aguilar ruled out such a possibility. However, his situation of confrontation with sectors of the IU worsened when he revealed that he had voted for the socialist candidate for the Senate, Maribel Flores. Despite these confrontations with local sectors of Izquierda Unida, Rosa Aguilar participated in the IX Assembly in December 2008, forming part of the "llamazarista" current, retaining her responsibilities as coordinator of the area of institutional relations.
Retirement from political life
In April 2022, after 48 years of militancy, he announced his retirement from political life shortly before his 65th birthday.
Distinctions and decorations
- Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III (30 December 2011).
- Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio