Pedro Sánchez

Biography

Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón was born in Madrid in 1972. He joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in 1993, graduated from a college attached to the Complutense University of Madrid in 1995 and later earned a degree in politics and economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles while working for the PSOE delegation in the European Parliament and on the staff of the UN High Representative in Bosnia. He received a doctorate in economics from Camilo José Cela University in 2012 and taught economics there.

He was a Madrid city councillor from 2004 and entered the Congress of Deputies in 2009. Elected PSOE secretary-general in 2014, he led the party through the inconclusive elections of 2015 and 2016 but resigned in 2016 after a clash with the party executive; he won the leadership back in 2017.

In June 2018 his motion of no confidence brought down Mariano Rajoy's government, the first successful such motion since Spain's return to democracy, and he became prime minister. After two elections in 2019 he formed the first national coalition government of the democratic era with Unidas Podemos. He called a snap election in July 2023 and, although the PSOE finished second, secured a third term that November. Since 2022 he has also been president of the Socialist International.