User:Sammielh/Julia García-Valdecasas

Julia García-Valdecasas Salgado (January 29, 1944 – February 5, 2009) was a Spanish civil servant and politician. She was a member of the Popular Party (PP). She received a degree in pharmacology in the late 1960s and ran a pharmacy in Barcelona for ten years. In 1980, she passed the competitive examination to join the civil service and spent her career in Catalonia as a public finance controller.

She joined the PP in 1995 and, in 1996, she was chosen by José María Aznar as the government representative in Catalonia. During her term of office, left-wing parties regularly called for her resignation due to several episodes of police violence and her stance on the territory's autonomy. In 2002, she joined the leadership of the PP of Catalonia under the presidency of Josep Piqué.

In September 2003, she joined the government as the Minister of Public Administration, where she ensured the quasi-consensual adoption of the law on the status of large cities and opposed any reform of the status of autonomy of Catalonia. In 2004, she was elected deputy for the province of Barcelona in the general elections. She resigned after two years for health reasons, as she was suffering from a neurodegenerative disease. She died in 2009 at the age of 65.

Early life
García-Valdecasas was born on January 29, 1944, in Barcelona. She was the daughter of, rector of the University of Barcelona between 1965 and 1969 who was known for his suppression of the pro-democracy student movement. She has a brother, Manuel, a gynecologist who delivered the four children of Infanta Cristina of Spain. She has five sisters, including Marga, who was engaged to Artur Mas, the future president of the Government of Catalonia, and Elena, a senior official in the government. Her family owned a house in Tui, Pontevedra.

In the summer of 1969 she married in Cádiz. They have three children.

Early career
García-Valdecasas studied at the University of Barcelona while her father was rector. In 1967, when Francisco was opposed to the student movement, she obtained her licentiate in pharmacology. She became a pharmacist and ran a pharmacy in Barcelona for ten years, between 1969 and 1979. In 1980, because she was bored with her job, she decided to take the competitive examination for the Control and Accounting Corps, which later became the Superior Corps of State Finance Inspectors, which she passed. In 1983, she was appointed Deputy Territorial Controller, then Territorial Controller of Barcelona for the next three years, and then Regional Controller of Catalonia until 1992. At that time, she was appointed Regional Delegate of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

In 1990 she was elected president of the National Association of Comptrollers (ANI). She held this position until 1994, while at the same time teaching at the École des finances publiques of the Institut des études fiscales, and at the Institut national d'administration publique. Between 1989 and 1991, she was a member of the Board of Directors of Espanyol de Barcelona, where she was in charge of economic issues. She was also a member of the board of directors of the Cercle Equestre from 1993 to 1996.

She was appointed the first female Minister of Public Administration from 2003 to 2004 by José María Aznar. She resigned from all positions in 2006 due to multiple system atrophy and died in Barcelona in 2009.