Spain Business
Eduardo Zaplana abandons his seat in Congress to join Telefónica
By h.b.
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:16 PM

Top Partido Popular activist, Eduardo Zaplana, the man who was the party’s spokesman in Congress last legislature, is to resign from his seat to become the European representative for Telefónica. He had announced that he would no longer be party spokesman last March.

Sources close to Zaplana have indicated that he is leaving politics on a temporary basis to represent the first Spanish multinational in the institutions and with European governments. Zaplana, who was number four on the PP candidate list in Madrid at the last election after a long association with Valencia, is rumoured to have received several offers of employment from the private sector. His Telefónica wage of 600,000 € will be ten times that he earned as a Deputy in parliament.

The announcement comes on the same day that the Partido Popular leader, Mariano Rajoy, is expected to announce his shadow cabinet. On hearing the news, Rajoy commented that Zaplana had been an extraordinary spokesman. ‘I have thanked him. I think he did a very good job’.

A statement from Telefónica says that Zaplana joins them at a time of the consolidation for the company in Europe, after the acquisition of O2 and the old Cesky Telecom, and the purchase of 10% of the voting shares in Telecom Italia.