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25 March 2004
MADRID – Pedro Solbes will be Spain’s new economy and finance minister, Socialist Party officials said Thursday.
Solbes, until now the European Union’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner, accepted the job offer from Socialist Party leader and prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
He will also hold the post of second deputy prime minister.
Born in 1942, Solbes has a doctorate in political science, as well as degrees in law and economy.
In 1991, he was named agriculture minister by former Socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez and served as economy and finance minister from 1993 to 1996.
In July 1999, he was named to head the European Union commission under Romano Prodi.
Solbes was one of the leading architects of the EU’s adoption of a single currency, the euro, in 2001.
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]
Subject: Spanish news