Carmen Chacón: Spanish Defence Minister
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By m.p. - Apr 13, 2008 - 9:39 AM
Carmen, or Carme, Chacón Piqueras was born in Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona province, on 13th March 1971. She becomes the first woman to head the Ministry of Defence in Spain.

Carmen Chacón received her degree in law from Barcelona University in 1994 and is a professor of constitutional law at Girona University.

Her fourth year studies in law were taken at Victoria University in Manchester, with her Doctorate course at the Barcelona Autonomous University. She graduated with cum laude honours for her thesis on ‘Federalism and the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.’

Further Post-Graduate studies took place at four Canadian universities: at the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, the University of Kingston, the Laval University in Quebec, and at Montreal University.

She became a member of the Cataluña Young Socialists in 1989, and five years later, in 1994, joined the PSC Catalan Socialist Party.

Carmen Chacón’s career in politics began when she was elected as a Town Hall councillor in her home town in 1999, where she was First Deputy Mayor with responsibility for economic and human resources and public safety.

The year 2000 saw her elected as a Socialist MP for Barcelona, and her election as a member of the PSC executive.

In September 2003, she was named spokesperson for the PSOE party ahead of the following year’s general election, holding onto her seat for Barcelona in the national poll held on 14th March 2004.

With the Socialist Party now in central government, Carmen Chacón was named as First Vice-President of Congress. She has been PSOE’s secretary for culture since July 2004, was an international observer for the OSCE (the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1996) and in Albania (1997).

She got married to a previous assessor to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Miguel Barroso in 2007, after a three year long relationship.

Carmen Chacón Piqueras was named as Spain’s New Housing Minister on 6th July 2007, but moved to become the first woman to head the Ministry of Defence at the start of the second Zapatero legislature in April 2008.

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