María Teresa Fernández de la Vega

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz ( born June 15, 1949 in Valencia) is a Spanish politician. She stood close to the PSOE, but without ever join the party. From 2004 to 2010 she was deputy prime minister in the cabinets Zapatero Zapatero I and II

Biography

During her law studies in Madrid and Barcelona in the early seventies María Teresa Fernández de la Vega joined the Catalan Communist Party Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya ( PSUC ), which formed at that time the most powerful force of resistance against the Franco dictatorship in Catalonia. After the end of the dictatorship in 1975 and the first free elections in which fared much worse than the social democratic PSOE communist parties, Fernandez de la Vega came in 1979 from the PSUC from. After the government takeover of the PSOE of Felipe González in 1982, she held various posts in the Ministry of Justice, 1986, she became a member of the European Committee on Legal Co-operation Council of Europe. In 1990 she became a member of the Consejo General del Poder Judicial, the highest institution of the Spanish judiciary, elected. Under Justice Minister Juan Alberto Belloch it was In 1994 Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice, which she remained until the electoral victory of the conservative People's Party led by José María Aznar in 1996.

In 1996, Fernandez de la Vega Members of the Spanish Lower House ( Congreso de los Deputies ), 2000 to 2004, she served as Secretary General of the PSOE Group. After the electoral victory of the PSOE led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on March 14, 2004, she was - appointed First Vice President Government - as the first woman to hold this office. They also practiced the Office of the Presidency Minister (according to the German Chancellery Minister ) and acted as a government spokeswoman.

As Minister was responsible Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega for many of the social reforms, especially in the family and gender equality policy, in the first years of the Zapatero government. These include the introduction of same-sex marriage, reforming criminal law for gender-based violence, the introduction of a far-reaching gender quota in political institutions and comprehensive legislation for the care of disabled people. She was one of the most famous and in surveys (2007) - in addition to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero himself - best classified members of the Spanish government.

With a larger reshuffle in October 2010, Fernández de la Vega left the Spanish Government. Her successor as Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba was, new presidential minister Ramón Jáuregui. Fernández de la Vega himself was of Zapatero proposed as a member of the Spanish Consejo de Estado, an advisory body.