The former president of the Parliament and the Unió Democràtica de Catalunya Joan Rigol has died at the age of 81, as La Vanguardia has learned.
Joan Rigol i Roig, born in Torrelles de Llobregat on April 4, 1943, was a man of humanistic and philosophical training. Master in Business Administration and Management from ESADE, member of the Spanish Institute of Investment Analysts. He has a doctorate in theology and a doctorate in philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy of Catalonia, for the thesis: “Love beyond death” in the philosophical work of Gabriel Marcel.
In 1976 he joined Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, a party of which he was president, succeeding Miquel Coll i Alentorn from 1987 to 2000. On June 20, 2015 he left the party after Unió broke its coalition with Convergència, and joined shortly after in the newly created Demòcrates de Catalunya formation.
He was a deputy in the Congress of Deputies in the years 1979-1980. He was appointed Labor Councilor by Jordi Pujol in the first term (1980-1984), promoted dialogue between employers and unions, and coordinated the efforts of the administrations to reduce the effects of the serious economic crisis on the unemployed. He was Minister of Culture in the following legislature (1984-1985), promoting a Cultural Pact with all political forces, involving a wide range of intellectuals of diverse ideologies, seeking the coordination of all Catalan administrations in the promotion of culture.
Deputy in the Parliament in the third (1988-1992) and fourth legislatures (1992-1995), chaired the Justice, Law and Citizen Security commission, at the beginning of the sixth legislature he was elected president of the Parliament (1999-2003).
Appointed senator representing the Generalitat in 1993, he held the first vice presidency in the fifth legislature (1995-1999). From this privileged platform, in the Constitutional Reform Presentation, he worked to defend the national character of the Catalan people and promoted the reform of the Senate so that it would be an authentic representative chamber of the nations and regions that make up the Spanish State. He has also held the presidency of the Committee to Study the Comprehensive Plan to Support Families.
He also chaired the National Pact for the Right to Decide, a pact in favor of the process of exercising the right to decide and holding a consultation on the political future of Catalonia, formed by civil society organizations, the most representative institutions of Catalonia. , the local world and political forces. The Pacte had a relevant role in the preparation of the independence consultation of 9-N 2014 and Rigol himself mobilized both before this consultation and during the fall of 2017, when the 1-O referendum was held, to ask the State that will negotiate with Catalonia.
Committed to civic life, he was an active member of different socio-cultural trusts: Fundación Olof Palme, Instituto de Humanidades, Royal Chapel of Catalonia and the Ortega y Gasset University Institute, Fundación Cassià Just and Fundación Joan Maragall; and was president of the Association of Former Deputies in the Parliament of Catalonia.
