“Meeting with Miguel Ángel Martínez, witness and part of the Spanish Transition, of the European construction and ambassador of peace and social justice in Europe”
In these dates in which we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution, we have the pleasure of having a distinguished debater who, having lived and suffered the consequences of the drama of the Spanish war since his childhood, was a witness and part of that exciting time of change after the dictatorship, and has dedicated and given his life to equality, human rights and social justice from the highest European levels, reaching the positions of Vice President of the European Parliament, President of the World Interparliamentary Union and of the Assembly Parliamentarian of the Council of Europe, and continues to work and travel at 78 years old carrying a message of peace.
Born in Madrid (1940), he studied medicine at the UCM Madrid and philology at Toulouse and Vienna. Gold medal from the Comenius University of Bratislava (Slovakia). He was prosecuted during the dictatorship for his militancy and had to go into exile in France. With democracy he returned to Spain. He holds a doctorate from the Universities of Moscow (Russia), Cluj (Romania) and Aberdeen (United Kingdom). He is a Spanish teacher at the Liceo Bellevue de Toulouse and at the Liceo Agrario de Ondes. Member of the PSOE, in 1977 he was elected deputy in Congress for Ciudad Real and in 1981
he was elected general secretary of the PSOE of Castilla-La Mancha. In 1999 he was elected MEP, and in 2007 he held the position of Vice President
of the European Parliament until 2014. He was also a member of the committees on Agriculture, Petitions, the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the European Parliament-Pan-African Parliament Delegation and a substitute on the Development Committee. Currently he is, among other things, vice president of the patronage of the Museum of History
European.
D. Miguel Angel Martínez is one of the five representatives of Ciudad Real in Congress (3 from UCD and 2 from PSOE) who approved the Constitution 40 years ago. He has been distinguished, among many other decorations, as a Grand Officer of the Order of the Three Stars and as a member of the Order of Liberty of the Republic of Slovenia. Recently, at the headquarters of the European Parliament in Brussels, he received the "Silver Rose" decoration, awarded by Solidar, a platform made up of a hundred progressive civil society organizations based in European Union countries, in recognition of the coherence of a long life at the service of ideals such as freedom, equality, social justice, democracy, respect for human rights and, very notably, the cause of peace.