New pro-EU government
Spain swears in new Cabinet with record number of 11 women members.
MADRID: King Felipe VI 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 350seat 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 composed by the 46-year-old, who ousted conservative veteran Mariano Rajoy as prime minister last Friday in a no-confidence vote, includes astronaut Pedro Duque as science minister.
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 yesterday.
The new executive includes two veteran Socialists – Carmen Calvo, deputy prime minister, and Borrell.
Calvo, who was culture minister from 2004 to 2007, will also be in charge of equality, a priority for Sanchez’s government in a country where women staged an unprecedented strike to defend their rights on March 8.
Anti-terror prosecutor Dolores Delgado became justice minister, former Supreme Court judge Margarita Robles defence minister, and other women have been put in charge of education, employment or health.
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.