Raül Romeva

Vice-Secretary General for Agenda 2030

Raül Romeva is an economist and holds a PhD in International Relations. He has spent much of his life abroad, being posted by UNESCO to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and working for Intermón-Oxfam as the coordinator for disarmament and armed conflict prevention campaigns. Between 2004 and 2014 he was a Member of the European Parliament for Catalan left-wing ICV, and was Vice-Chair of the Greens/EFA group for five years. He was considered the most active politicians in the European Parliament with over 1,600 contributions.

In the 2015 elections to the Parliament of Catalonia, he headed the Junts pel Sí pro-independence coalition ticket, and with the 11th Parliament of Catalonia he was appointed the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency. He has lived in Montpellier, Paris, Sarajevo, Brussels and Strasbourg. He is a keen swimmer, and a member of the Club Natació de Caldes and Club Natació Sabadell swimming clubs.

He lived with his family in Sant Cugat del Vallès and was an active member of the local Castellers Gausacs human towers group until he was unjustly imprisoned for defending democracy, first on November 2, 2017 and, after being released on bail, again on March 23, 2018. In the Spanish elections of April 28, 2019, he was the most voted senator with over 900,000 votes.

On October 14, 2019, the Supreme Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison. During his imprisonment he wrote two books, Esperança i llibertat (Hope and Freedom, 2019) and Ubuntu: La República del bé comú (Ubuntu: The Republic of the Common Good, 2020). He was able to take part in Esquerra’s election campaign for the February 2021 Catalan parliamentary elections.

• Graduate in Economic Sciences (UAB).
• PhD in Institutional Relations (UAB).
• He participated in initiatives of support to refugees in refugee camps of Croatia during the conflict of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993-1994).
• Investigator about peace and disarmament at the UNESCO Center of Catalonia (1994-1998).
• He has been a professor of Institutional Relations in the Autonomous University of Barcelona from 1994 to 2002.
• He worked for UNESCO of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995-1996) as a responsible of the educative and promotional program of the program Culture of Peace.
• He has been an electoral consultant of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the years 1996 and 1997.
• Coordinator of disarmament and prevention of armed conflicts campaigns of Intermón-Oxfam (1998-1999).
• He has been a research analyst on armed conflict and post-war rehabilitation at Barcelona’s Autonomous University-UAB School for a Culture of Peace.

Author of several books, both fiction and political essay.

• Member of the European Parliament representing Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV) from 2004 to 2014.
• Vice-president of the group Greens/EFA in the European Parliament for five years.
• Deputy of the Parliament of Catalonia since 2015. Reelected in 2017 with the candidature ERC-Catalunya Sí.
• Minister of Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency of the Government of Catalonia in the eleventh legislature.
• He was a senator for Barcelona in the 23rd Spanish Parliament, the most-voted member of the Senate with over 900,000 votes in the April 28 2019 elections.