Spain gets female majority cabinet

MADRID: King Felipe VI on Thursday swore in Spain’s new pro-EU government with a record 11 women members including in key posts such as defence and economy, and six male ministers.

With just 84 seats in Spain’s 350-seat parliament, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s administration also has the smallest representation of any government since the country returned to democracy and it is not expected to last until the end of its mandate in 2020.

The new executive was composed by the 46-year-old, who ousted conservative veteran Mariano Rajoy as prime minister last week in a no-confidence vote.

EU budget manager Nadia Calvino became economy minister and former European Parliament president Josep Borrell foreign minister.

When Sanchez presented his cabinet on Wednesday evening he said it was “a reflection of the best in society” -- a society he described as composed of women and men, old and young, rooted in the European Union.

But as a minority government it will have a tough time governing Spain, relying as it will on the votes of far-left party Podemos as well as Basque and Catalan nationalist lawmakers who supported his no-confidence motion.

Each new minister vowed to “faithfully fulfil the duties of minister... with loyalty to the king” at a ceremony at the Zarzuela palace near Madrid.

Fernando Grande-Marlaska, an openly gay former judge at Spain’s top-level National Court, where he took on cases against Basque separatist group ETA, heads up the interior ministry.

Women also lead the economic team of Sanchez’s government, whose “main priority” will be to respect Madrid’s deficit reduction commitments to the EU, the new prime minister has said.AFP