Manuel Medina (politician)

Manuel Medina Ortega ( * December 15, 1935 in Arrecife, Las Palmas ) is a Spanish jurist and politician ( PSOE). He was, among others, from 1986 to 2009 Member of the European Parliament.

Medina Ortega was one of nine children of Celia Ortega and Rafael Medina Armas, who was elected in 1936 as a candidate of the Frente Popular mayor of Arrecife. After graduating in law from the University of La Laguna in 1957 Medina Ortega received his doctorate in 1961 at the University of Madrid and received in the following year a Master in Comparative Law at Columbia University. From 1959 to 1975 he taught at the University Complutense Madrid International Law and International Relations, with a visitor at the University of Redlands 1969/70. In 1975 he was ernann Dean of the Political and Social Sciences at the Complutense University, but moved in the same year at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, where he took over the Chair of International Law, and in 1976 also became Vice-Rector. In 1978 he returned to the Complutense, where he remained until 1982.

In the Spanish general elections 1982 Medina Ortega won on the list of the socialist party PSOE a seat in the Spanish parliament. With the Spanish accession to the European Communities 1986, he was Member of the European Parliament, where he served as a member of the Group of the Party of European Socialists from then until the 2009 European elections. From 1986 to 1987 Medina Ortega was also Vice- President of the Parliament; 1987 to 1994 he headed the delegation of the European Parliament for relations with the countries of South America. After that, he was deputy from 1994 to 1999, leader of the Social Democrats. In the European elections in Spain 2009 Medina Ortega did not start and was eliminated thus out of the Parliament.