Leopold Calvo-Sotel’s country is today’s democratic Spain

These lines evoke, as I can understand, the need for reconciliation that arose in political action.

It served as a portico of rare intensity in a public life that was slowly maturing. This story captured in my memory as a teenager by the “indecent or provocative” comment, as he calls it, became a hue and cry in his life.

Born in Madrid on April 14, 1926, he was always considered to be from Ribadeo and Galicia. Studied Fireplace Engineering with promotion number one.

She was interested in politics from a young age. He was a monarch and a European, with ideas attached to him José Ortega and Gasset. An intense reader, he built a large and varied personal library to accompany his passion for knowledge.

In my professional life, I was tied to the company where I worked as a young executive. This allowed her to travel to Europe, cultivate languages ​​and confirm the Ortega idea in Europe it was the solution to Spain’s problems.

I carefully stayed away from active politics for the duration of the regime. At the end of the 1960s, he was appointed president of Renfe and shortly afterwards a prosecutor in the court representing the chemical industry.

When it failed in 1975 Candid y Juan Carlos I Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo assumed the crown and thought he was bound for a while.

He was the Minister of Trade in the first government of the monarchy Carlos Arias Navarro in front. He entered politics in one of the most intense eras of Spanish history.

The government’s reform plans failed. But then another step was taken in the democratic process, which, encouraged by King Juan Carlos of Zarzuela, was the leader Adolfo Suarez.

El de Ribadeo was a good addition to Abulense: an excellent technical expert, well versed in the world of business and Europe, gifted for organization and without ties to the political family.

Suárez appointed her Minister of Public Works and in June 1977 she became one of the architects of the UCD project. They won a brilliant victory.

“Suárez proposed Calvo-Sotelo as his successor. The UCD accepted him, but Leopoldo refused to lead the party, which most people complained about.”

Leopoldo returned to government in 1978 to fill the charge he liked best: minister for relations with the European Community. Political support for the project was unanimous, and its management at the front was effective until 1980, when it ended with a French veto that paralyzed entry.

The speech coincided with a moment of internal crisis in the UCD, which affected Suárez’s leadership, while the socialist opposition tried to mock him with a motion of no confidence.

The fraud of the centrist leader occurred at the end of that year and his resignation in 1981.

Suárez suggested Calvo-Sotelo as his successor. UCD accepted him, but Leopoldo refused to lead the party, which he complained about the most.

The government’s agenda was filled with a centrist agenda. This is how I put it in my investiture speech. Nadie found out that during the second round of voting, a deliberate coup would change a lot of things: On 23-F there was an unpleasant situation in its execution.

After overcoming the coup, the Calvo-Sotelo government can do everything as expected and also in normalizing the political position of the armed forces.

To record this, he sought consensus with the opposition in putative clubs.

El primero, the fight against terrorism and the coup d’état. The progress has been remarkable. One aspect of ETA, the political-military, was disbanded. The military headquarters and intelligence services were renovated, leading to the neutralization of potential military conspiracies.

The government further returned the decision of the military tribunal to the coup plotters before the Supreme Tribunal and ensured that the sentences would stand. There was a subordination of soldiers to civil power.

The idea was strengthened by joining OTAN, which Calvo-Sotelo considered essential. With the growing socialist opposition, he achieved this in a contracting career. It was a long historical story obscured by a new slowdown in trade in the common market.

Francois MitterrandRealizing the weakness of the government, the French president decided that it was better to expect more than in 1983, as originally thought.

Calvo-Sotelo also concluded a pact with the Socialists on Autonomous Affairs, which was signed in 1981 to harmonize the decentralization process.

With respect to UCD and PSOE, the law that would have prevented many subsequent problems was therefore the decision of the Constitutional Court, which annulled various articles that did not favor the exemption in 1983 by the government of the Czech Republic. Felipe Gonzalez.

That is why Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo was born in UCD. Internal divisions continued to grow and defection members of the parliamentary club became chronically ill.

He went to the party leadership in November 1981 to try to resolve it. It was late.

In 1982, he wanted Suárez to direct it. This was denied and a new party, the Centro Democrático y Social, was formed shortly afterwards. It was a torpedo in the middle line of the fleet.

The Calvo-Sotelo government may have achieved most of the centrist agenda, but voters don’t trust these shortcuts to think about the future. Derrota was terrible.

In the October elections, UCD lost 157 MPs as punishment for its division.

In later reflections, Calvo-Sotelo noted that the centrists realized the transition, desired harmony, brought about a great transformation of the country, returned to its place in the world, consolidated it as a democracy, and made an exemplary transfer of power to the socialists.

Lots of leftovers Their opponents will also reward them.

This was because they became a region widely shared by the Spanish. It was a generous response to that “¡Fixeron well!”.

*** Pablo Pérez López is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Navarra. He is the co-author of the book Consolidar la democracia. The Government of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo (1981-1982)”.