Once the parenthesis of personal reflection imposed by Pedro Sánchez has been overcome, which forced the pending meeting of the federal commission of Ferraz lists to be postponed until Tuesday afternoon, the PSOE now has all the pieces of the puzzle of its candidacy for the European elections fitted. on June 9, led by the third vice president of the Government, and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera. The big surprise on the list is the return to politics of Leire Pajín, who will finally occupy eighth place on the socialist list for the European elections.
Born in San Sebastián, in 1976, although she grew up in Benidorm and was a senator and deputy for Alicante, Pajín held the positions of Secretary of State for International Cooperation (2004-2008), Secretary of Organization of the PSOE (2008-2010) and Minister of Health (2010-2011) during the mandates of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The then leader of the Valencian socialists, Ximo Puig, recovered her in 2012, and for a few months she was deputy general secretary of the PSPV, before leaving politics to work in various health-related organizations. Since 2019 she was president of the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development.
After Vice President Teresa Ribera, Iratxe García – current president of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats of Europe and until now head of the PSOE delegation in the European Parliament – ??once again occupies second place on the electoral list, as already happened in 2019, when Josep Borrell led the candidacy. And Javi López, leader of the PSC, rises to third position on the list.
The European socialist candidacy continues, in this order, Hana Jalloul, Javier Moreno, Lina Gálvez, Jonás Fernández, the aforementioned Leire Pajín, César Luena – who was also secretary of organization of the PSOE, the first of Pedro Sánchez’s mandates, among them 2014 and 2016, as well as leader of the socialists of La Rioja until 2017, before jumping to the European Parliament in 2019 – and Idoia Mendía, who led the Basque socialists and was second vice president in the last Basque government of Íñigo Urkullu , in tenth place.
Completing the list are Nicolás González Casares, Cristina Maestre, former minister Juan Fernando López Aguilar, Sandra Gómez, Nacho Sánchez Amor, Laura Ballarín, Marcos Ros, Rosa María Serrano, Elena Sancho and the veteran Pepe Cepeda, in position number twenty, among others.
As reported by the PSOE, the list meets the parity criteria to be presented to the Central Electoral Board and has a strong female presence. More than 57% of the starting positions and 54% of the list’s starters as a whole are women. Including the substitutes, the list is made up of 36 women and 30 men, which represents 54.55% of women in the total candidacy. The socialist candidacy has thus been renewed in 38% of the starting positions and in 79% of the total. The average age of the candidates in the starting positions is 48 years old, and 43 for the entire list.
