Jaime Mayor Oreja (born 12 July 1951) is a former Spanish conservative politician of the
People's Party. He served as member of the
Basque Parliament
The Basque Parliament (Basque language, Basque: ''Eusko Legebiltzarra'', Spanish language, Spanish: ''Parlamento Vasco'') is the legislative body of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Autonomous Community of Spain and the elected ...
, of the
Spanish Parliament
The (; ) 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 meets in the Palacio de las Cortes. The Senate meets in the Palac ...
, and of the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
, as well as being Spanish Minister of the Interior between 1996 and 2000. He is known for his outspoken anti-ETA rhetoric and social ultracatholicism
Biography
Early life
Mayor Oreja was born and raised in
San Sebastián
San Sebastián, officially known by the bilingual name Donostia / San Sebastián (, ), is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, from the France–Spain border ...
, in the Spanish
Basque Country, where he attended a school run by
Marianists. He earned an
agricultural engineering degree and briefly studied law before dropping out to enter politics.
Mayor Oreja's family is deeply rooted in conservative Spanish politics. His grandfather
Marcelino Oreja Elósegui, a Catholic activist and
Carlist
Carlism (; ; ; ) is a Traditionalism (Spain), Traditionalist and Legitimist political movement in Spain aimed at establishing an alternative branch of the Bourbon dynasty, one descended from Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain, Don Carlos, ...
politician, was a victim of the
Asturian strike action of 1934, and his uncle
Marcelino Oreja Aguirre served extensively in the Spanish civil service and in the European Parliament. It was Marcelino Oreja who introduced his nephew to politics.
Early career
Oreja joined the
Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) in 1977. After failing to be elected in the first democratic elections to the Cortes Generales since Francisco Franco's death, he won a seat with the UCD in the 1979 elections. Shortly after the elections, he was appointed delegate of the Spanish government to the Basque Government. He was also involved in the drafting of the
Basque Statute of Autonomy
The Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country of 1979 (; ), widely known as the Statute of Gernika (; {{langx, es, Estatuto de Guernica), is the legal document organizing the political system of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country' ( ...
, serving in the Basque General Council, precursor to the autonomous parliament as a minister for tourism.
He left the Cortes Generales in 1982 as the Socialist Party won a majority. He kept his position as delegate of the Spanish government to the Basque Government until 1983, when the UCD began to collapse. He joined the People's Coalition, and stood as their candidate for lehendakari in the 1984 Basque elections. Disagreements within the governing party, the Basque Nationalist Party, a snap election was called in 1986. Mayor Oreja then retired from politics.
Return to Politics
In 1989, at the request of
Manuel Fraga
Manuel Fraga Iribarne (; 23 November 1922 – 15 January 2012) was a Spanish professor and politician during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, who was also one of the founders of the People's Alliance (Spain), People's Alliance (AP). Fraga ...
, Mayor Oreja returned to politics to help the newly founded
People's Party (PP). He was the party's candidate in the Basque elections of 1990, and managed the European Parliament elections of 1989, where the party made no significant gains or losses. In 1994, the party nearly doubled its seats.
Ministerial career
After
José María Aznar
José María Alfredo Aznar López (; born 25 February 1953) is a Spanish politician who was the prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He led the People's Party (Spain), People's Party (PP), the dominant centre-right political party in Spai ...
's win in the 1996 Spanish Parliamentary Elections, Mayor Oreja was appointed Minister of the Interior. Upon entering government, he had to deal with the ETA's kidnapping of
José Antonio Ortega Lara. In 1998, ETA declared a ceasefire. Mayor Oreja took a hawkish stance, denouncing the ceasefire as false truce. He famously coined the term "tregua-trampa", or "trap truce", and he publicly stated his refusal to engage in any political negotiation with ETA. His hard stance against ETA's terrorism earned him over much praise amongst Spanish conservatives.
2001 Basque candidacy
His tenure as Minister of the Interior marked Mayor Oreja's height of influence, and thereafter his political career experienced an irregular decline. In 2001, his party chose him as candidate to the
Basque regional presidency in that year's election, so he resigned as Minister of the Interior to focus on running the campaign.
The
2001 Basque elections took place in the aftermath of the collapse of
ETA
Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...
's 1998 ceasefire. Mayor Oreja ran on an aggressive ticket,
[ defending the Spanish Constitution and the Statute of Gernika as the main framework to defeat ETA, and vigorously attacked the incumbent ]Basque Nationalist Party
The Basque Nationalist Party ( , EAJ; , PNV; , PNB; EAJ-PNV), officially the Basque National Party in English, is a Basque nationalist and regionalist political party. The party is located in the centre of the political spectrum. It has been de ...
because Mayor Oreja alleged they were complicit with terrorism. Although his ticket never polled high enough to secure a plurality of seats in the Basque parliament, Mayor Oreja and the Spanish Socialist Party made it clear that were the incumbent lehendakari
The President of the Basque Government (, ), usually known in the Basque language as the Lehendakari (, ), is the head of government of the Basque Autonomous Community. The lehendakari leads the executive branch of the regional government.
T ...
Juan José Ibarretxe to fail to secure an absolute majority in the Basque parliament, Mayor Oreja would form a minority government instead with the Socialist's support. Albeit Mayor Oreja improved his party's results and attained 22.9% of the votes, this proved insufficient to unseat Ibarretxe, who obtained 42.4% of the votes with a 6.2% swing in his favour. As a result, Mayor Oreja failed to become lehendakari, and Ibarretxe was re-elected.
He remained leader of the opposition in the Basque country until 2004. During this time, he developed a reputation as an absentee parliamentarian, particularly after missing a key vote in 2002 that enabled the Ibarretxe government to pass its budget by just one vote (Mayor Oreja's).
Conservative leadership hopeful and MEP
In 2004 he was mentioned as a potential successor to the outgoing Spanish prime minister José María Aznar
José María Alfredo Aznar López (; born 25 February 1953) is a Spanish politician who was the prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He led the People's Party (Spain), People's Party (PP), the dominant centre-right political party in Spai ...
, but the latter finally opted for 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 2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy, vote of no confidence ousted his government. A m ...
instead. Shortly afterwards, Mayor Oreja quit his seat in the Basque parliament and ran for MEP in that year's European parliament elections, where he secured a seat. For the next ten years, he occupied several senior positions in the European People's Party group
The European People's Party Group (EPP Group or simply EPP) is a political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes it also includes independent ME ...
of the European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
, but was largely inactive in the Spanish political landscape.
Later career
His position against abortion and LGBT rights, and his hard-line stance against terrorism, placed him at the far right of his party. After a series of public spats with his party's leadership over their strategy in the final days of ETA, Mayor Oreja decided not to run again for the European Parliament in the 2014 election, and largely abandoned public life. Since then, he has chaired the ''Fundación Valores y Sociedad'', an ultraconservative lobby devoted to extending ultra-catholic ideas throughout the Spanish-speaking world. He has since publicly engaged with the defence of what he deems as "traditional" values, including positions against gender studies, women's rights, and LGBTQ rights. He has denounced what he deems as the ''moral decadence'' of modern society, and claimed that abortion is something "''worthy of bolcheviques''", and deployed intense lobbying activity defending these stances in Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayor Oreja, Jaime
1951 births
Living people
Interior ministers of Spain
Members of the 1st Basque Parliament
Members of the 2nd Basque Parliament
Members of the 4th Basque Parliament
Members of the 5th Basque Parliament
Members of the 7th Basque Parliament
Members of the 1st Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 4th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 6th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 7th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Members of the 8th Congress of Deputies (Spain)
MEPs for Spain 2004–2009
MEPs for Spain 2009–2014
People's Party (Spain) MEPs
Recipients of the Order of Constitutional Merit
Politicians from San Sebastián