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Pedro Sanchez
Also Known As Pedro Sanchez Perez-Castejon, Castejon
Prime Minister of Spain
Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón is a Spanish politician who has been Prime Minister of Spain since June 2018. He has also been Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since June 2017, having previously held that office from 2014 to 2016. Moreover, Sánchez is the current President of the Socialist International, having been elected to that position in November 2022.
Sánchez began his political career in 2004 as a city councillor in Madrid, before being elected to the Congress of Deputies in 2009. In 2014, he was elected Secretary-General of the PSOE, becoming Leader of the Opposition. He led the party through the inconclusive 2015 and 2016 general elections, but resigned as Secretary-General shortly after the latter, following public disagreements with the party's executive. He was subsequently re-elected in a leadership election eight months later, defeating Susana Díaz and Patxi López.
On 1 June 2018, the PSOE called a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, successfully passing the motion after winning the support of Unidas Podemos, as well as various regionalist and nationalist parties. Sánchez was subsequently sworn in as Prime Minister by King Felipe VI the following day. He went on to lead the PSOE to gain 38 seats in the April 2019 general election, the PSOE's first national victory since 2008, although they fell short of a majority. After talks to form a government failed, Sánchez again won the most votes at the November 2019 general election; further, in January 2020 he formed a minority coalition government with Unidas Podemos, the first national coalition government since the country's return to democracy.
Early Life
Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón was born in 1972 in Madrid to a well-off family, son to Pedro Sánchez Fernández and Magdalena Pérez-Castejón. His father was a public administrator long employed at the Ministry of Culture's Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (lit. 'National Institute of the Performing Arts and Music'). He later became the owner of an industrial packing company. His mother worked as a civil servant in the social security system (later becoming a lawyer, graduating with her son at the same university). Raised in the Tetuán district, he studied at the Colegio Santa Cristina, also located in the district. According to Sánchez himself, he frequented breakdancing circles in AZCA when he was a teenager. He moved from the Colegio Santa Cristina to the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu, a public high school where he played basketball in the Estudiantes youth system, with links to the high school, reaching the U-21 team.
In 1990, Sánchez went to study economics and business sciences. In 1993, he joined the PSOE after the victory of Felipe González in the elections that year. Sánchez earned a licentiate degree from the Real Colegio Universitario María Cristina, attached to the Complutense University of Madrid, in 1995. Following his graduation he worked in New York for a consulting firm.
In 1998, before entering a career in local and national politics, Sánchez started to work in Brussels in the PSOE's delegation to the European Parliament as assistant to MEP Bárbara Dührkop. He also worked in the staff of the United Nations high representative in Bosnia, Carlos Westendorp. He earned a degree in Politics and Economics in 1998 after graduating from the Université libre de Bruxelles.
He earned a degree of business leadership from IESE Business School in the University of Navarra, a private university and apostolate of the Opus Dei. Sánchez obtained a diploma in Advanced Studies in EU Monetary Integration from the Instituto Ortega y Gasset in 2002.
Education
- degree of business leadership - IESE Business School in the University of Navarra
- diploma in Advanced Studies in EU Monetary Integration - Instituto Ortega y Gasset
Career
- Spain - Prime Minister