GONZLEZ MRQUEZ, FELIPE

born March 5, 1942, Seville, Spain Spanish lawyer and Socialist politician who was prime minister of Spain from 1982 to 1996. During his four terms in office, he consolidated Spain's fledgling democracy, oversaw continued economic growth, and brought Spain into the European Community (now European Union). The son of a livestock handler, Gonzlez was the only one of five children to attend college. He studied first to be a civil engineer at the University of Seville before transferring to its law faculty. While still a student, he became involved in the Socialist movement, then in 1964 joined the outlawed Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espaol; PSOE). He started a law practice in Seville, specializing in the defense of workers' rights, and in 1965 moved to Madrid. By 1974 he had risen to become secretary-general of the party. Gonzlez' ensuing efforts to broaden his party's popular appeal and electoral base were so successful that in the 1977 general elections the now-legalized PSOE emerged as the largest single political party in Spain. Gonzlez' moderate stance and his youthful, attractive public image helped his party to a sweeping victory in the 1982 general elections. He became at age 40 Europe's youngest head of government. As prime minister, Gonzlez froze Spain's participation in NATO but supported his country's entry into the European Community in 1986. His pragmatic domestic policies were aimed at reducing inflation, modernizing the economy through free-market policies, furthering Spain's economic integration within western Europe by means of the EC, and transferring significant powers to Spain's regional governments. His government expanded health-care benefits and extended educational opportunities to Spaniards of all classes. Gonzlez broke with the remnants of Spain's authoritarian past by expanding freedom of the press and ensuring the independent functioning of the judiciary. The Socialists were reelected to power in 1986 and 1989, but with diminishing majorities. An economic boom sparked by Spain's entry into the EC gave way in 1990 to successive years of slow growth and an unemployment level that had reached more than 20 percent by 1993. In elections that year the PSOE failed to capture a majority of seats in the Cortes (parliament), but Gonzlez was able to form a minority government by means of a parliamentary alliance with a coalition of Catalonian parties. Gonzlez retained much of his popularity with the voters, and the economy began to recover in 1994, but Spain's unemployment remained the highest of any country in the European Union. In 1994 Gonzlez' government was rocked by a series of financial scandals involving highly placed members of his administration. The government was further tainted by evidence that it had employed death squads to assassinate a number of Basque separatist guerrillas in France between 1983 and 1987. This scandal, and the growing corruption in the Socialist administration, prompted the Catalonian parties to withdraw their support from the government in July 1995. Gonzlez was obliged to call general elections for March 1996, which were narrowly won by the conservative Popular Party. Gonzlez' long prime ministry ended that May, when he yielded office to Jos Mara Aznar Lpez, the Popular Party's leader.