Meritxell Batet Lamaña (born 19 March 1973) is a Spanish jurist and politician member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia, currently serving as

President of the Congress of Deputies The president of the Congress of Deputies ( es, Presidente del Congreso de los Diputados) is the speaker of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Cortes Generales (the Spanish parliament). The president is elected among the members ...

. Prior to this, she served as Minister for Territorial Policy and Civil Service of the

Government of Spain gl, Goberno de España eu, Espainiako Gobernua , image = , caption = Logo of the Government of Spain , headerstyle = background-color: #efefef , label1 = Role , data1 = Executive power , label2 = Established , d ...

between June 2018 and May 2019. A professor of Constitutional Law at the

Pompeu Fabra University Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Ca ...

, she has been a member of the Socialist Parliamentary Group in the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th terms of the lower house.

Early years and academic career

Batet studied at the Gravi School in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and joined the university with the support of scholarships. In 1995 she graduated in Law from the

where also took

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

courses with the presentation of the thesis ''Participation, deliberation and transparency in the institutions and bodies of the European Union''. In 1998 she completed a postgraduate course in real estate and urban development law at IDEC. In 2013 presented the doctoral thesis project entitled ''The principle of subsidiarity in Spain''. From 1995 to 1998 she was professor of Administrative Law at Pompeu Fabra University and was a professor of Constitutional Law until her appointment as Minister in 2018. In 2007 received a German Marshall scholarship to maintain a stay in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Member of the Congress of Deputies

Her first contact with politics was during her student years. She explained in different interviews that when she received a grant from the Generalitat to study the doctorate at the university, her thesis supervisor, Josep Mir, told her that

Narcís Serra Narcís Serra i Serra (born 30 May 1943) is a Spanish economist and politician, serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 1991 to 1995. Born in Barcelona in 1943, he was one of the leading figures of Catalan socialism during the Spanish tr ...

, then first secretary of the PSC, was looking for someone to coordinate his secretariat who was not a militant. Batet collaborated with him for two years. From 2001 to 2004 she directed the Carles Pi i Sunyer Foundation for Autonomous and Local Studies. In 2004, she was an independent in the ninth position on the

list of the Socialist Party of Catalonia for the Congress of Deputies headed by José Montilla and was elected member of parliament for

. In 2008 she joined the PSC where she works in the group of

Gràcia Gràcia () is a district of the city of Barcelona, Spain. It comprises the neighborhoods of Vila de Gràcia, Vallcarca i els Penitents, El Coll, La Salut and Camp d'en Grassot i Gràcia Nova. Gràcia is bordered by the districts of Eixample to th ...

of the Federation of Barcelona. In the legislative elections of 2008 occupied the eleventh position of the list for Barcelona and renewed her seat as in the legislative elections of 2011 to which it concurred in the position number eight. In February 2013 she broke the voting discipline of the Socialist Group together with other members of the PSC by voting in the Congress of Deputies in favor of the two initiatives presented by CiU and La Izquierda Plural ( IU- ICV /

EUiA United and Alternative Left ( ca, Esquerra Unida i Alternativa, EUiA) is a political party in Catalonia, Spain. EUiA has 4000 members, and it is the Catalan correspondent of the Spain-wide United Left (IU). It was formed in 1998 as a schism ...

- CHA) to allow the carrying out a referendum in Catalonia on its future relationship with the rest of Spain. The socialist group fined undisciplined deputies with 600 euros. In July 2014, she was appointed Secretary of Studies and Programs in the Federal Executive Commission of the PSOE, assuming her first organic position. In the legislative elections of 2015, she was number two on the PSOE list for

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

despite being a PSC militant in tandem with Secretary-General

Pedro Sánchez Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (; born 29 February 1972) 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 p ...

. In addition to coordinating the electoral program for the elections, Sánchez entrusted her with the coordination of the team of experts that outlines its proposal for reforming the Constitution. In February 2016, she was one of the people chosen by Sánchez to negotiate with other political forces in an attempt to set up an alternative government alliance to PP. In April 2016, she agreed to head the PSC's list for Barcelona in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

convened for the month of June, following the resignation of

Carme Chacón Carme Maria Chacón Piqueras (; March 13, 1971April 9, 2017) was a Spanish lawyer, lecturer and politician who was minister of Defence from 2008 to 2011 in the cabinet led by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Member of Sp ...

to become a candidate again. In May 2016, it was confirmed that Batet would be a candidate without primaries after the resignation of Carles Martí to propose an alternative candidacy. She was one of the 15 PSOE-PSC deputies to vote against the investiture of Mariano Rajoy following the elections.

Minister for Territorial Policy and Civil Service

In June 2018, following the

motion of censure A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or m ...

that the

PSOE The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gov ...

presented against the previous government of

Mariano Rajoy Mariano Rajoy Brey (; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a vote of no confidence ousted his government. On 5 June 2018, he announced his resignation as People's Party le ...

( PP) and that was approved by the

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Ma ...

on June 1, new

Spanish Prime Minister The prime minister of Spain, officially president of the Government ( es, link=no, Presidente del Gobierno), is the head of government of Spain. The office was established in its current form by the Constitution of 1978 and it was first regula ...

, appointed her as Minister in new

Spanish government gl, Goberno de España eu, Espainiako Gobernua , image = , caption = Logo of the Government of Spain , headerstyle = background-color: #efefef , label1 = Role , data1 = Executive power , label2 = Established , d ...

Felipe VI Felipe VI (;, * eu, Felipe VI.a, * ca, Felip VI, * gl, Filipe VI, . Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Grecia; born 30 January 1968) is King of Spain. He is the son of former King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía, an ...

formally appointed her by

royal decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

on June 6 as holder of the portfolio of Minister for Territorial Policy and Civil Service. On 7 June she took office as Minister before the King at Palace of Zarzuela. At the request of the Prime Minister and to focus solely on government work, Batet resigned to her seat in parliament after more than 14 years of service on June 15. She stepped down on May 20, 2019 in order to become head of the

President of the Congress of Deputies

Batet was elected Member of the Congress of Deputies again in the April 2019 general election. On May 17, 2019, the Socialist Party, winner of the general election, announced that would present Batet as the candidate of the party to be the next speaker of the lower house. The

Cortes Generales The Cortes Generales (; en, Spanish Parliament, lit=General Courts) are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house). The Congress of Deputies m ...

opening sessions were held on May 21 and, as expected, Batet was elected

Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...

. Batet was elected thanks to the support of her party, the far-left Unidas Podemos and other minority parties such as

Basque Nationalist Party The Basque Nationalist Party (, EAJ ; es, Partido Nacionalista Vasco, PNV; french: Parti Nationaliste Basque, PNB; EAJ-PNV), officially Basque National Party in English,) was rejected by party members in November 2011. Nonetheless, the party did ...

, Compromís,

Canarian Coalition The Canarian Coalition ( es, Coalición Canaria, CC) is a regionalist, Canarian nationalist political party in Spain operating in the Canary Islands. The party's aim is for greater autonomy for the islands but not independence. It has been label ...

and the

Regionalist Party of Cantabria The Regionalist Party of Cantabria ( es, Partido Regionalista de Cantabria, PRC) is the second oldest political party in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Cantabria. The PRC originated in the Association in Defense of the Interests of Cantab ...

. The 13th Cortes Generales were disbanded on September 24, 2019 due to the impossibility of forming a government. Batet was re-elected on the November 2019 general election and the Socialist Party presented her as its candidate to Speaker of the House. She received the trust of the lower house again in December 2019, being re-elected as head of the Congress of Deputies.

Personal life

In August 2005 she married, in the Cantabrian town of Santillana del Mar, a member of parliament for

Cantabria Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...

of the People's Party, José María Lassalle, with whom she has two twin daughters. They divorced ten years later, in May 2016. Lassalle was appointed by PM Mariano Rajoy State Secretary for Culture, and later, in 2016, Society of Information and the Digital Agenda of Spain. Batet tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

on 27 December 2021 during the pandemic in Spain.Batet, positivo por coronavirus, no podrá presidir mañana el pleno del Congreso en el que se aprobarán los Presupuestos
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Publications

*E. Niubó, M. Batet, J. Majó , ''Europa, Federalisme, Socialdemocràcia XXI'', Fundació Rafael Campalans, Barcelona, 2012. *''L’esperança cívica d’Europa. Reflexions sobre el paper de la ciutadania a partir de la nova Constitució Europea''. Publicado en FRC Revista de Debat Polític, primavera 10, 2005. *''Indicadores de gestión de servicios públicos locales''. Document Pi i Sunyer número 25, Fundació Carles Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona 2004 *''Indicadors de gestió de serveis públics locals: una iniciativa des de Catalunya''. En Evaluación y control de políticas públicas. ''Indicadores de gestión''. Ayuntamiento de Gijón, 2002

References