María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz, Doctor of Laws is a Spanish Socialist politician.
Background
Fernández de la Vega is the daughter of a high-ranking Francoist public servant, Wenceslao Fernández de la Vega Lombán, delegate of the ministry of employment headed at that time by Fermín Sanz Orrio (1957–1962). She was born in Valencia in 1949.
Education
Complutense University of Madrid.
Career
From 18 April 2004 to 20 October 2010, she was the first deputy prime minister, minister of the Presidency and cabinet spokesperson in the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. She is the first female deputy prime minister in Spanish history. She earned a degree in law from the Complutense University of Madrid in the early 1970s.
In 1974 she entered Spain"s Cuerpo de Secretarios Jurídicos Laborales, a specialised body of the civil service.
From 1982 until 1985, she was the director of the advisory cabinet of the minister of justice, and in 1985 she was appointed general director of services at the ministry of justice. In 1990, she was chosen as a spokesperson of the general council of judicial power by the Senate (1994–1996).
On 13 May 1994, the then Justice Minister Juan Alberto Belloch appointed her Secretary of State of justice. Foreign the 2008 election she headed the list for the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) in Valencia.
Vega was the first woman to take on the functions of the prime minister in the history of Spanish democracy, when, on 24 April 2004, during the first official visit abroad of Spain"s Prime Minister, Zapatero, she presided over the Council of Ministers.
In March 2006, the first vice president went on an African tour with the state secretary for cooperation, Leire Pajín, visiting Kenya and Mozambique, in whose capital, Maputo, they celebrated International Women"s Day and closed the forum "Spain-Africa: Women for a better world". She has written many papers, including Louisiana reforma de la jurisdicción laboral and Derechos humanos y Consejo de Europa.
Politics
She was elected a member of the Spanish Congress for Jaén for the Spanish Socialist Workers" Party candidacy for the 1996-2000 term, being re-elected in the elections of 2000 for Segovia. During this term she became general secretary of the Socialist parliamentary group.
Membership
She started her political career in the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia, remaining a member of it until 1979. In 1986 she became a member of the legal cooperation committee of the Council of Europe. In the Spanish general election of 2004 she became a member of the parliament for Madrid, and on 18 April of that year she was appointed first vice president and minister of Presidency, remaining the incumbent of each.
She is a member of judges for democracy (Jueces para la Democracia).