Profiles
Mercedes Cabrera Calvo-Sotelo: Minister for Education, Science and Sport
By m.p.
Dec 2, 2007 - 12:26 PM

Mercedes Cabrera Calvo-Sotelo is the niece of a former Prime Minister (Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo) and of the former Foreign Minister, Fernando Morán López. The Spanish physicist, Blas Cabrera Felipe, was her great-uncle: both his son and grandson went on to become renowned physicists.

Mercedes Cabrera is a respected historian with a Doctorate in Political Sciences and Sociology from Complutense University in Madrid (1977). She has been a Professor in Complutense’s Department of History of Thought and Social and Political Movements since 1996.
She is a specialist in Spanish history in the first half of the twentieth century and has a number of publications to her name on the subject. She was co-director of the journal, ‘Historia y Politica – History and Politics,’ published by her department at Complutense.
She is also President of the Asociación de Amigos de la Residencia de Estudiantes.

She was first elected to parliament in March 2004, after the future Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, chose her as his number two on the list for Madrid: she had worked with the Socialist Party before on their electoral programme for the previous election held in 2000.
After achieving her seat in parliament, Cabrera was President of the Education and Science Commission in Congress, and also a member of the Public Administration Commission.

Mercedes Cabrera is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, a socialist cultural institution which is named after one of the founders of both the UGT union and the PSOE party. Pablo Iglesias made history when he was elected in 1910 as the first ever Socialist member of a Spanish parliament.

Mercedes Cabrera Calvo-Sotelo’s appointment as Education Minister came in April 2006 when the Prime Minister announced changes in his Cabinet with the decision by the Defence Minister, José Bono, to retire from politics.
José Antonio Alonso moved from the Interior Ministry to take over Defence, and Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Socialist Spokesman in parliament, joined the Cabinet as the new Interior Minister.

Zapatero decided at the same time to relieve María Jesús San Segundo as Education Minister, bringing in Mercedes Cabrera as her replacement.