Former minister Fátima Báñez dies in the train accident in Toledo

BarcelonaFátima Báñez, Minister of Labor and Social Security during the government of Mariano Rajoy, is one of the fatalities of this Wednesday's train accident in the town of Urda (Toledo), according to sources consulted by ARA. There had been no news of her since early Wednesday morning, and the CEOE employers' association, whose foundation she presided over, reported that they were trying to contact her. Speculation proliferated throughout this Wednesday, but her death was confirmed this Thursday.

Báñez, who was 59 years old, was traveling on the Iryo that was making the journey from Madrid to Seville, where she was to attend an event of the Confederation of Employers of Andalusia. "I would be lying if I didn't say that this suffering, of not knowing anything about her, hurts me especially, not only because we are friends and colleagues, but also because she got on that train to join us at the celebration of the Day of the Company, which we had scheduled for today in Seville," expressed the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, in the afternoon, before the tragic outcome was known.

Born in Huelva in 1967, Báñez was politically known for having promoted the controversial labor reform of the Popular Party executive of Rajoy, which made the labor market more flexible in 2012. That decision led to the calling of two general strikes against her, at a time when the unemployment rate did not stop growing, above 25%, and when the Spanish state was struggling to get out of the public debt crisis and the effects of the bursting of the real estate bubble. Forged in parliamentarianism, with nineteen years of experience in the Congress of Deputies –eleven when she assumed the ministerial portfolio–, she had earned a reputation as a dialogue-oriented politician. "I will always prefer an agreement, even if it is partial, to a reform by decree," she said before pushing ahead, by decree, the labor reform or reforming the pension model to decouple it from the CPI.

The longest-serving Minister of Labor

With almost eight years at the Ministry of Labor, Báñez has been the person who has spent the most time in the position in the democratic era (she also assumed the Health portfolio for a few months in 2016 and was, de facto, the Minister of Labor of the Generalitat de Catalunya during the application of Article 155). The economic situation improved, and when she left the ministry in 2018, the unemployment rate had fallen below 15%. She remained a deputy for a year after the motion of no confidence that brought Pedro Sánchez to the Moncloa, and in 2019 she left the front line of politics once the elections were called.

More than two decades later –before moving to state politics in 2000, she had been a director of Andalusian television since 1997– she rejoined the private sector. Since 2020, she was president of the CEOE Foundation and was part of the board of directors of the Rovi laboratories, in addition to being a director of the international subsidiary of the energy company Iberdrola. She was also part of advisory boards such as the Hermes Foundation.

Báñez had a background in business at ICADE, at the Comillas Pontifical University, with a postgraduate degree from Harvard and another in leadership for public management at IESE. Married with children, she began her political career in 1996 under the wing of the Andalusian PP. She never lost her connection with the Popular Party, and was always considered a party woman.