María Teresa Fernández de la Vega

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega
First Deputy Prime Minister of Spain
In office 18 April 2004 – 20 October 2010
Monarch	Juan Carlos I
Prime Minister	José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Preceded by	Rodrigo Rato
Succeeded by	Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba
Member of the Congress of Deputies
In office 9 March 2008 – 21 October 2010
Constituency	Valencia
In office 14 March 2004 – 9 March 2008
Constituency	Madrid
In office 12 March 2000 – 14 March 2004
Constituency	Segovia
In office March 1996 – March 2000
Constituency	Jaen
Personal details
Born	María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz (1949-06-15) 15 June 1949 Valencia, Spain
Political party	PSOE
Other political affiliations	PSUC
Alma mater	Complutense University of Madrid
Profession	Jurist

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz, LLD (born 15 June 1949) is a Spanish Socialist politician. From 18 April 2004 to 20 October 2010, she was the first deputy prime minister, minister of the Presidency and cabinet spokesperson in the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. She is the first female deputy prime minister in Spanish history.

Biography

Fernández de la Vega is the daughter of a high-ranking Francoist public servant, Wenceslao Fernández de la Vega Lombán, delegate of the ministry of employment headed at that time by Fermín Sanz Orrio (1957–1962). She was born in Valencia in 1949. She earned a degree in law from the Complutense University of Madrid in the early 1970s. In 1974 she entered Spain's Cuerpo de Secretarios Jurídicos Laborales, a specialised body of the civil service.

She started her political career in the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia, remaining a member of it until 1979. From 1982 until 1985, she was the director of the advisory cabinet of the minister of justice, and in 1985 she was appointed general director of services at the ministry of justice. In 1986 she became a member of the legal cooperation committee of the Council of Europe. In 1990, she was chosen as a spokesperson of the general council of judicial power by the Senate (1994–1996). On 13 May 1994, the then Justice Minister Juan Alberto Belloch appointed her Secretary of State of justice.

She was elected a member of the Spanish Congress for Jaén for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party candidacy for the 1996-2000 term, being re-elected in the elections of 2000 for Segovia. During this term she became general secretary of the Socialist parliamentary group. In the Spanish general election of 2004 she became a member of the parliament for Madrid, and on 18 April of that year she was appointed first vice president and minister of Presidency, remaining the incumbent of each. For the 2008 election she headed the list for the PSOE in Valencia.

Vega was the first woman to take on the functions of the prime minister in the history of Spanish democracy, when, on 24 April 2004, during the first official visit abroad of Spain's Prime Minister, Zapatero, she presided over the Council of Ministers.

In March 2006, the first vice president went on an African tour with the state secretary for cooperation, Leire Pajín, visiting Kenya and Mozambique, in whose capital, Maputo, they celebrated International Women's Day and closed the forum "Spain-Africa: Women for a better world".

On 7 October 2006 she received the Tomás y Valiente Award in Fuenlabrada, Madrid.

She is a member of judges for democracy (Jueces para la Democracia). She has written many papers, including La reforma de la jurisdicción laboral and Derechos humanos y Consejo de Europa.

See also

• Council of Ministers of Spain (8th Legislature)

External links

• Website of the Ministry of Presidency of Spain