Oriol Junqueras

President

Oriol Junqueras’ family left Barcelona and moved to Sant Vicenç dels Horts when he was only two years old. That’s why he considers Sant Vicenç his hometown and often says he is especially proud to have served as its mayor. Oriol is a historian and university professor. Specifically, he holds a degree in Modern and Contemporary History, a PhD in the History of Economic Thought from the University of Barcelona, and has taught at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

He speaks Catalan, Spanish, Italian, English, and is trying to learn a bit of Chinese. He was a Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2011 and mayor of his beloved town from 2011 to 2015. In 2011, he was elected President of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and, a year later, became a member of the Catalan Parliament. In 2016, he was appointed Vice President of the Government of Catalonia and Minister of Economy and Finance until, on October 27, 2017, the Spanish government illegitimately dismissed him through Article 155 of the Constitution. In November 2017, he was preventively imprisoned on charges of rebellion and sedition—charges he has never accepted, as he said during his trial at the Supreme Court, “voting is not a crime; preventing it by force is.”

In 2019, he led Esquerra’s lists in the Spanish general elections of April 28 and the European elections of May 26. Esquerra Republicana won a general election to the Spanish Congress for the first time, and did so again in the repeat election on November 10. On October 14, 2019, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but this has not prevented him from continuing to lead the party, promoting the independence movement, and advocating for an amnesty to bring an end to the broad legal case against the independence movement. He was able to participate in Esquerra Republicana’s campaign for the Catalan Parliament elections in February 2021, in which the party became the leading political force, tied with the PSC.

Beyond his academic and political career, Oriol Junqueras has collaborated with various media outlets such as Catalunya Ràdio, RAC1, and RNE, and has been a screenwriter and consultant for television documentary series such as The Eleventh of September 1714, The Maquis: The Silenced War, Living with Risk, and Barcelona under Francoism. He has also authored and co-authored more than a dozen books. And as a curiosity, he once worked at the Vatican’s secret archive.