José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

Biography

Family background and early life

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was born in Valladolid, Castile and León, to Juan Rodríguez y García-Lozano (born 1928), a lawyer, and María de la Purificación Zapatero Valero (1927–2000). He grew up in León, where his family originated.

His paternal grandfather, Juan Rodríguez y Lozano (1893–1936), was a captain in the Spanish Republican Army; he was executed by Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces a month into the Spanish Civil War, for refusing to fight with them. His whereabouts were revealed by fascists in Valladolid.

His maternal grandfather, Faustino Valentín Zapatero Ballesteros (1899–1978), was a paediatrician and middle class liberal. His maternal grandmother María de la Natividad Valero y Asensio (1902–2006) was a conservative and died at age 103. Zapatero was born in Valladolid not only because of his mother's attachment to her family, who lived there, but also because of the medical profession of her father.

Zapatero has said that, as a youngster, "as I remember it, I used to participate in late night conversations with my father and brother about politics, law or literature". However, he did not get along very well with his father at times. Sources say that his father refused to let him work or take any part in his law firm, and this scarred him for life. He says that his family taught him to be tolerant, thoughtful, prudent and austere.

The memory of Zapatero's grandfather was also kept alive by a last will, handwritten 24 hours before facing the firing squad, and which can be considered a final declaration of principles. The will comprised six parts, the first three bestowing his possessions on his heirs; the fourth, in which he asked for a civil burial and, the fifth, in which he requested his family to forgive those who had tried and executed him and proclaiming his belief in the Supreme Being. In the sixth, Zapatero's grandfather asked his family to clear his name in the future as his creed consisted only in his "love for peace, for good and for improving the living conditions of the lower classes".

According to an Israeli newspaper, Maariv, by Zapatero's own statement: "My family, named Zapatero, is of Jewish descent", probably from a family of Marranos. He is an agnostic.

Entering politics

Zapatero attended his first political rally, organized by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in Gijón in 1976. Some political parties had been legal since 21 July 1976, but the PSOE was not legalized until February 1977. The speech of Felipe González, the PSOE leader and future Prime Minister of Spain, who took part in the rally, exerted an important influence on Zapatero. He said, among other things, that "the Socialists' goal was the seizure of power by the working class to transform the ownership of the means of production" and that "the PSOE was a revolutionary party but not revolutionarist or aventurist [...], as it defended the use of elections to come to power".

Zapatero and his family had been traditionally attracted to the Communist Party as it was the only party really organized before Francisco Franco's death in 1975. But, after the famous political rally in Gijón, they, and especially Zapatero, started to believe that the Socialist Party was the most probable future for the Spanish left. At that time the Socialist Party was rebuilding its infrastructure in the province of León after having been outlawed following the Spanish Civil War.

In 1977, the year of the first democratic elections after Franco's death, Zapatero supported both the Communist and Socialist parties. He pasted posters of both parties.

He eventually joined the PSOE on 23 February 1979. The impression Felipe González had caused on him in 1976 played a fundamental role in his decision to join the party. In 1979, during the Congreso Extraordinario del PSOE (1979), the PSOE had renounced Marxism as its ideological base. He said nothing about joining the party at home, because he was afraid his parents would discourage him, considering him too young to join a political party.

In 1982, Zapatero became head of the socialist youth organization in the province of León. In July 1982, he met Felipe González at the summer school "Jaime Vera" and suggested that he make a "left turn" in the PSOE political program for the General Election of October 1982. González answered advising him to abandon his conservative (traditional for PSOE [leftist]) viewpoint.

Member of the Congress of Deputies

In 1986, he was elected to represent the province of León in the Cortes (Parliament), becoming its youngest member after the election held on 20 June. He was number two on the PSOE list for León. In the following elections (those held in 1989, 1993, 1996 and 2000) he was number one on the list. In the elections of 2004 he ran for Madrid as number one.

Zapatero defined himself as a "left-wing conservative" at the time. He explained that he meant that, for sentimental reasons linked to his family, he came from the left that lost the Spanish Civil War and that what had happened between 1936 and 1939 (the duration of the war) and 1939–1975 (Franco's regime) had a very important significance for him. He further explained that the Spanish left needed to modernize and that "we are finding it difficult to accept the need for the Socialist Party to change many of its ideological parameters and overcome our own conservatism".

In 1988 he became Secretary General in León after a complex internal fight for power that ended a long period of division. In fact, before the provincial conference held that year, Ramón Rubial, then national president of the PSOE, had asked the party in León to foster unity. Zapatero was elected as Secretary General at that conference, leading to a period of stability.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the PSOE consisted of two factions: the Guerristas (supporters of Alfonso Guerra, former vice-president under Felipe González) and the reformers (led by Felipe González). The first group had a stronger left-wing ideology whereas the second was more pragmatic. The division became wider after the General Election of 1993, the last election won by the PSOE before José María Aznar's victory in 1996, when the bad results exacerbated the internal conflicts. Zapatero never formally joined either of those two groups.

In 1993, the Socialist Federation of León (FSL – Federación Socialista de León) suffered an important scandal. Some towns experienced unusually sharp increases in PSOE membership in a very short period of time. When some of the supposed new members were questioned by the press, they stated that they were unaware of their membership and that they did not live in the places where they were being registered by the party. It seems that some opponents of Zapatero in León, perhaps with the support of powerful Guerristas at the top of the Spanish Socialist Party wanted to increase their influence within it by increasing the number of members in the towns of León favorable to them. Their main aim would have been to take control of the Regional Socialist Section of Castilla y León in the conference to be held in 1994. Zapatero's support for the then Regional Secretary General, Jesús Quijano transformed him into the enemy of the Guerristas in the region as the FSL is the most important Provincial Section.

Bid for PSOE leadership

On 12 March 2000, the PSOE had lost its second successive election to José María Aznar's People's Party. Zapatero held his seat, but the Socialist Party obtained only 125 seats, 16 fewer than in 1996. The defeat was especially bitter as the People's Party unexpectedly obtained an absolute majority for the first time and the socialist result was worse than in the previous election. Almunia announced his resignation on the very day the General Election took place.

Zapatero decided to run for the leadership of the Socialist Party in its 35th Conference to be held in June that year. Together with other socialist members, he founded a new faction within the party called Nueva Vía (New Way) in April 2000, to serve him as a platform to become Secretary General. The name of Nueva Vía was a mix of Tony Blair's Third Way (tercera vía in Spanish) and Gerhard Schröder's Neue Mitte (new center or nuevo centro in Spanish).

On 25 June 2000 Zapatero officially announced his intention to run for the federal Secretaryship General at an Extraordinary Conference of the Socialist Party of León.

Pasqual Maragall was the only regional leader of the Socialist Party who officially supported him before the Conference was held. Josep Borrell also decided to support him.

Zapatero ran against three other opponents (José Bono, Rosa Díez and Matilde Fernández). Matilde Fernández was the candidate of the guerristas while José Bono was the candidate of the reformers. Rosa Díez was a Basque politician who was a kind of intermediate option at the time.

Zapatero was a dark horse who had against him his inexperience and in favour his image of reform and being the only MP among the candidates. (All the Spanish opposition leaders had been MPs before winning the elections. A very important factor in Spanish politics where electoral campaigns last for only 15 days and to be widely known long before they begin is essential.) Bono was deeply disliked by the guerristas, who also favoured Zapatero.

Zapatero finally won by a relatively small margin (he obtained 414 votes out of 995 and José Bono obtained 405) on 22 July 2000. The margin was relatively small because Bono had no likelihood of winning since the supporters of the other two candidates preferred Zapatero as their second choice. Zapatero accepted the cancellation of a run-off between himself and Bono because he was sure of his victory after only one ballot and he apparently did not want to humiliate his adversary.

Opposition leader

This was the period when Zapatero was appointed as Secretary General of the PSOE in 2000 until he became Prime Minister of Spain on 14 April 2004.

Zapatero has always claimed to base his political activity on his love of dialogue. When he was an opposition leader, he liked to contrast his behaviour with the "arrogant", "authoritarian" approach of the People's Party and, especially, that of its leader José María Aznar.

As a result, after being appointed Secretary General, he coined the term Calm Opposition (Oposición Tranquila) to refer to his opposition strategy. The Calm Opposition was supposedly based on an "open to dialogue", "soft", "constructive" attitude (talante constructivo, coined as talante) aimed not at damaging the government but at achieving the "best" for the people. (Zapatero has insisted on this point so many times that the term talante has become very popular in Spain.) Because of this supposed tactic, Zapatero received nicknames like Bambi or Sosoman (where Soso, meaning "dull, insipid, bore", replaces Super in Superman), especially in the first months after being appointed General Secretary.

After his election to the leadership of the PSOE, Zapatero spoke about the influence of the political philosophy of civic republicanism on him in general, and in particular the ideas of republican political philosopher Philip Pettit. In an interview with El Mundo, Zapatero linked civic republicanism's focus on civic virtue to tolerance of individual autonomy and expanding political participation.

During Zapatero's years as an opposition leader (and later as prime minister), the tension between left-wing and right-wing supporters increased and, according to some opinions, a real radicalization of the society took (and is taking) place . Zapatero's supporters blame his opponents for that and the People's Party blames him stating facts such as the increase in the acts of violence committed against them, especially in the months before and during the war in Iraq. As a result, a new term has become popular: guerracivilismo (made up of a combination of the Spanish for Civil War and the -ismo suffix, equivalent to the English "-ism"), which would refer to the growing enmity of right and left-wing factions.

Zapatero's criticisms of the government were very active from the beginning, blaming the government for its inability to control the rise in the price of fossil fuel and asking for a reduction in the corresponding taxes.

The 2004 general election

The campaign for the General Election started a fortnight before 14 March 2004. Polls favoured the People's Party, with some polls predicting a possible repeat of their absolute majority.

Previously, on 8 January 2004, Zapatero had created a Committee of Notables composed of 10 highly qualified experts with considerable political weight. Its mission was to help him to become prime minister. Among its members: José Bono (his ex-rival for the Secretaryship of the party and later appointed Minister of Defence), Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra (president of the regional government of Extremadura and one of the most important socialist leaders), Miguel Ángel Moratinos (his minister of foreign affairs 2004–2010), Gregorio Peces-Barba (later appointed by him High Commissioner for the Victims of Terrorism, although he has already made public his resignation), Carmen Calvo (later appointed minister of culture), etc.

Ten days later, on 18 January 2004, Zapatero announced that he would only become prime minister if the Spanish Socialist Workers Party received a plurality, renouncing possible parliamentary alliances in advance if that situation did not happen after the election. Minority parties (especially United Left, a communist party) criticized the decision, for they considered it an attempt to attract their own voters, who would rather ensure a defeat of the People's Party even at the expense of voting for an unfavorable party.

Zapatero's slogan became "we deserve a better Spain", which was coupled with "Zapatero Presidente", or "(ZP)", which became a popular nickname of the then Spanish Prime Minister.

Campaign promises

180,000 new houses every year to buy or to rent

Preservation of a balanced budget with no deficit but with a more flexible approach than that of the People's Party

Bilingual education (English and Spanish, together with the official regional language in the areas where it existed)

Premiership

His style's defining word is (buen) talante, roughly "pleasantness", "niceness" or "good disposition", which is in brisk and carefully chosen contrast with the more confrontational and brusque premiership style of previous Prime Minister José María Aznar. Similarly, Zapatero has been quoted to shy away from adopting unpopular measures, having a "habit of showering public money on any problem" and, in all, being "averse to tough decisions".

Withdrawal from Iraq

One of the first measures he carried out as soon as he took office was to withdraw every Spanish soldier fighting in Iraq, calling the invasion of that country "an error based on lies". In less than a month, his nation's 1,300 troops were withdrawn from Iraq. This drew criticism from the right, who held the view that he was ceding to the pressure of the terrorists who attacked Spain. However, it was a measure announced by him before the general elections and supported by the majority of Spanish population.

Domestic policy

Much of Zapatero's work has been on social issues, including gender-motivated violence and discrimination, divorce and same-sex marriage. The most recent social issue tackled has been the Dependency Law, a plan to regulate help and resources for people in dire need of them, and who cannot provide for themselves and must rely on others on a daily basis. Zapatero has also made it clear that he values funding of research and development and higher education and believes them to be essential for Spain's economic competitiveness. At the same time, he increased the minimum wage and pursued other socialist policies.

Economic problems

Facing a recession and rising unemployment, Zapatero pledged to cut government spending by 4.5% and raise taxes, but not income taxes. The Popular Party contended that Zapatero lacked a coherent economic plan and stated "There is no tax increase capable of filling the hole that you have created". On 23 June 2008 Zapatero announced 21 reforms designed to aid economic recovery in a speech pointedly avoiding popular terms of the period such as 'crisis'. Although government deficits were projected to increase to 10% of GDP, Zapatero promised to reduce it to 3% required by EU policy by 2012.

In January 2011 Spain's Unemployment Rate had risen to 20.33% exceeding his target rate of 19.4%.

LGBT rights

The legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain on 1 July 2005 includes adoption rights, as well as other rights that were previously only available to heterosexual couples. This caused a stir within the Catholic Church, which opposed the measures and supported a demonstration attended by some 166,000 (according to official figures) and one million people (according to the organisers) in Madrid.

In 2007, Zapatero's government was also responsible for a Gender Identity Law that allowed transgender persons the right to have their identity legally recognised, the criteria being one clinical evaluation and two years of treatment (generally hormone replacement therapy), without the need for mandatory genital surgery or irreversible sterility. The law was, along with the legislation of some US states, one of the most simple and non-bureaucratic in the world. Transgender persons also have the right to marry persons of the opposite or same sex they have transitioned into, and to biologically parent children either before or after transitioning.

Regional territorial tensions

Zapatero has often declared that his government will not be "soft on terrorism", and will not allow regional nationalists to endanger Spanish unity.

On 13 November 2003, in a rally in Barcelona during the election campaign that took Pasqual Maragall to power in the Generalitat, Rodríguez Zapatero gave a famous promise to approve the Statute of Catalonia:

I will support the reform of the Statute of Catalonia that the Parliament of Catalonia approves.

In October 2005, a controversial proposal to reform the Catalan statute arrived at the Spanish parliament after being passed in Catalonia. Zapatero, who had often expressed his support for a change of the statute (although he did not entirely support the draft passed by the Catalan Parliament), supported the reform.

Legacy of the Civil War and Francoism

In October 2004, Zapatero's government undertook the task of morally and legally rehabilitating those who were suppressed during and after the Spanish Civil War, by instituting a Memorial Commission chaired by Vice-Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.

On 17 March 2005, Zapatero's government ordered the removal of the last remaining statue of former dictator Francisco Franco that remained in Madrid.

The measures taken have been criticized as an over-correction by the opposition arguing that the Historical Memory Law of 2007 reopens old wounds and has been taken advantage of by certain groups to present a unilateral version of the war which focuses solely on the crimes of one side whilst widely ignoring those of the other.

Reform of the education system

Just after he took office, Zapatero repealed the law reforming the Education System passed by the previous government and, in November 2005, introduced his own reform bill. The bill was opposed by the People's Party, the Catholic Church, the Muslim community, The Catholic Confederation of Parents' Associations and an important part of the educational community, often for disparate reasons. Complaints against the reform include the limits it imposes upon parents' freedom to choose a school, the decrease in academic status of voluntary religious education, the introduction of a compulsory course ("Education for Citizenship") and a perceived ineffectiveness of the reform in terms of combating poor educational results. The last complaint would be reinforced by the opinion that Spain has ranked poorly amongst the developed countries in the quality and results of its education.

After a major demonstration took place against this education reform, the government held a series of meetings with many of the organizations that opposed the reform, reaching agreements with some of them (especially parents' associations and teachers' unions). Some others, most prominently the People's Party and the Catholic Church remain staunchly opposed to it.

ETA

ETA declared what it described at the time as a "permanent ceasefire" that began on midnight 23 March 2006. On 5 June 2007, ETA declared this ceasefire over. After the initial ceasefire declaration, he informed the Congress that steps would be taken to negotiate with them in order to end its terrorist campaign while denying that there would be any political price paid to put an end to ETA. The PP grew concerned about the possibility of political concessions being made to the group to stop their ways, and actively opposed anything other than the possibility of an organized surrender and dismantling of ETA, refusing to support any kind of negotiation. On 30 December 2006 the ceasefire was broken when a car bomb exploded in Madrid's International Airport, Barajas and ETA claimed authorship. Following this, Zapatero gave orders to halt initiatives leading to negotiations with ETA. Demonstrations across Spain followed the next day, most condemning the attack, others condemning the Government's policies and a minority even questioning the authorship of the Madrid bombings.

A massive rally in Madrid followed on 25 February 2007 promoted by the Victims of Terrorism Association (AVT in Spanish acronym), rejecting what are perceived to be concessions from the government to the separatists.

On 10 March 2007, a new massive rally was held in Madrid, gathering - depending on the source's relationships to the government - between 342,000 and over two million people. This demonstration was organized by the opposition party PP and backed by the AVT and several other associations of victims, to not allow Iñaki de Juana Chaos out of prison and accusing Zapatero's government of surrendering to terrorism.

Immigration

During the meeting of the European Union Justice and Home Affairs Ministers held in Tampere on 22 September 2006, some of the European ministers reprimanded the Spanish authorities for the aforementioned massive regularisation of undocumented immigrants which was regarded as too loose and opposed to the policies of other State members (on 2 September and 3 alone, during the height of the last illegal immigration wave, 2,283 people arrived illegally in the Canary Islands having shipped from Senegal aboard 27 pirogues).

The regularisation of undocumented immigrants numbered at 576,000 in 2005.

Foreign policy

Before being elected, Zapatero opposed the American policy in regard to Iraq pursued by Prime Minister Aznar. During the electoral campaign Zapatero promised to withdraw the troops if control in Iraq was not passed to the United Nations after 30 June (the ending date of the initial Spanish military agreement with the multinational coalition that had overthrown Saddam Hussein). Zapatero declared that he did not intend to withdraw the Spanish troops before that date after being questioned about the issue by the People's Party's leader Mariano Rajoy in his inauguration parliamentary debate as prime minister.

On 19 April 2004 Zapatero announced the withdrawal of the 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq.

The decision aroused international support worldwide, though the Bush administration claimed that terrorists could perceive it as "a victory obtained due to the 2004 Madrid train bombings". John Kerry, then the Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. presidency, asked Zapatero not to withdraw the Spanish soldiers. Some months after withdrawing the troops, the Zapatero government agreed to increase the number of Spanish soldiers in Afghanistan and to send troops to Haiti to show the Spanish Government's willingness to spend resources on international missions approved by the United Nations.

On 8 June 2004, with the withdrawal already complete, Zapatero's government voted in the United Nations Security Council in favour of Resolution 1546 where the following could be read:

The Security Council, Recognising the importance of international support [...] for the people of Iraq [...], Affirming the importance of international assistance in reconstruction and development of the Iraqi economy [...]

15. Requests Member States and international and regional organizations to contribute assistance to the multinational force, including military forces, as agreed with the Government of Iraq, to help meet the needs of the Iraqi people for security and stability, humanitarian and reconstruction assistance, and to support the efforts of UNAMI […]

An important change in Spanish foreign policy was Zapatero's decision to approach left-wing leaders such as Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Zapatero played an important role in the improvement of the relationship between the Cuban government and the European Union.

Israel

Zapatero condemned the 2006 Lebanon War. Zapatero issued a statement saying that "From my point of view, Israel is wrong. One thing is self defense, and the other is to launch a counter offensive consisting on a general attack in Lebanon and Gaza that is just going to further escalate violence in the area".

2008 election

On 9 March 2008, Zapatero's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) won the general election with 44% of the votes. Two days earlier, on 7 March, Isaías Carrasco, a PSOE Basque politician was shot dead in what is believed to be an attack by ETA, and which resulted in the agreed canceling of the final days of the campaign.

Post-premiership

He left office on 20 December 2011 and left the PSOE's Secretary General chair on 4 February 2012 to Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. On 9 February 2012 he took up a role as a member of the Council of State. He left the Council of State in 2015 in order to become the President of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, a Berlin-based organization trying to foster intercultural relations.

Backed by UNASUR, Zapatero was promoted to a role as mediator in Venezuela in 2016. As a result of the conversations he took part in, the so-called "Acuerdo de Convivencia Democrática por Venezuela" (endorsed by Zapatero and Danilo Medina) was proposed in February 2018 so it could be ratified by the parties in conflict. However, the document (tentatively trying to set a roadmap for legislative elections, respect for the rule of law, a plan to improve the economic situation and a reparatory truth commission) was accepted by the Venezuelan government but rejected by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

In 2019, Zapatero joined the inaugural meeting of the so-called Puebla Group in Buenos Aires, a conference of left-leaning political leaders.

During the 2016 PSOE crisis and the subsequent 2017 PSOE federal party congress, Zapatero expressed and unconditionally supported Susana Díaz—the Andalusian President and an opponent to incumbent party leader Pedro Sánchez. However, after Sánchez's re-election to the party leadership in 2017, Zapatero became a major ally of Sánchez. Zapatero enthusiastically campaigned for Sánchez's re-election as Prime Minister during Spain's 2023 election to a surprise victory, rallying the party's "old guard" that had long been skeptical of Sánchez. Zapatero also served as the Sánchez government's main mediator with Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Belgium since the 2017 independence referendum.

On 19 August 2024, Spanish far-right union Manos Limpias filed a complaint with the ICC against former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, accusing him of being a "collaborator" with the Maduro administration. According to said complaint, Zapatero would have received the rights to operate a gold mine in Venezuela; however, no evidence of this has been made public. Zapatero himself dismissed the allegations as "surreal".

Judicial case

He became the first Spanish prime minister to be charged when, on 19 May 2026, the National Court charged him with money laundering and membership of a criminal organisation in connection with an investigation into the alleged laundering of the €53 million public bailout that the second government of Pedro Sánchez provided to the airline Plus Ultra in 2021. As part of the investigation, the General Commissariat of Judiciary Police carried out searches at the former president's office, as well as at companies linked to his daughters and business circles, where documents and electronic devices were seized.

The investigation is examining possible offences of membership of a criminal organisation, influence peddling and document forgery, along with other irregularities relating to financial and corporate transactions linked to the loan granted to the airline during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the very day he was charged, Zapatero denied having any commercial companies in Spain or abroad and rejected any involvement in the Plus Ultra bailout, stating that his public and private activities had been conducted in accordance with the law and that he would cooperate with the authorities.

On 21 May, the Court ordered the freezing of some of Zapatero's bank accounts.

Ideology

Zapatero's social-democratic project of Nueva Vía ("New Way") was based to a substantial degree on the republicanism of Philip Pettit ("freedom as non-domination"). Branded domestically as socialismo cívico, his initial vision was underpinned by the extension of minority rights, the strengthening of the welfare state, a contrast between "constitutional patriotism" and "nationalism", the widening of spaces for deliberation and the defence of international organizations and multilateralism.

Honours and awards

National honours

Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (30 December 2011)

Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Raymond of Peñafort (24 June 2025)

Others

Honorary Doctorate from the National University of San Marcos (16 May 2008)

Honorary Doctorate from Toulouse Capitole University (12 January 2015)