Former President José María Aznar “very sincerely” regretted the death this Thursday of Josep Piqué, whom he appointed Minister of Industry and Energy (1996 and 2000), Foreign Affairs (2000 and 2002) and Science and Technology (2000 and 2003).. “He was an excellent friend, collaborator and minister of the Government of Spain. I will always remember and be grateful for the excellent job he did in all the responsibilities he had to take on and which he carried out with great loyalty and brilliance.”
The former leader of the Catalan PP during the Statute stage and representative of a conservative Catalanism and loyal to the Constitution has died at the age of 68 at the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, as reported by the family in a statement.
To the numerous expressions of condolence that have followed one another after the news was known, that of the current President of the Government has been added. “My love and heartfelt hug to the family, friends and colleagues of Josep Piqué. A public servant leaves us, a man committed to civil society and always willing to dialogue,” Pedro Sánchez wrote on his Twitter account.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has also lamented the death of his party mate. “We lose an excellent professional always willing to help his country, a Catalan of strain, a great Spaniard and best friend. All my love to Gloria and other family. Rest in peace,” he said in a tweet.
The wife of the former minister, the journalist Gloria Lomana, has been “dismayed” by the death of the “love” of her life, has thanked the expressions of affection received and has reported that they will watch over the mortal remains of the deceased in the funeral home of the M-30 in Madrid this Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.. “His integrity, strength, love for family, work and life will always be with us,” he wrote on Twitter.
The general secretary of the PP and spokesperson for the party in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, remembered the deceased as an “intelligent, open-minded and affable” person and “a high-level political benchmark for Catalonia and Spain”.. “A man always at the service of his country,” he said in a publication on the same social network.
For his part, the Institutional Deputy Secretary of the PP, Esteban González Pons, has expressed his “sadness” at the death of his party mate, whom he has described as a “reference in international relations, industry and constitutionalism” who “represented a form intelligent to do politics”: “Yes, Piqué was intelligence, education, dialogue and good humor. It leaves us an unfillable hole.”
The death of former minister Josep Piqué has united the various Catalan political parties beyond ideological divergences. In this sense, the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, assured that “the great ideological and political distance with his positions does not prevent me from thanking him for his affable treatment and recognizing the relevance of his political and business career. My condolences to family and friends. Rest in peace”, an acknowledgment shared with the first secretary of the PSC and head of the opposition in Catalonia, Salvador Illa, who assured that “since the political disagreement, we will remember him as a politician who spoke out and was committed to his ideals”.
Precisely, one of the most repeated messages is the importance of Piqué in Catalan politics, he was president of the PP of Catalonia, and Spanish. Thus, the general secretary of Units per Avançar and deputy of PSC-Units in Parliament, former minister Ramon Espadaler, defined him as a “relevant figure in Catalan, Spanish and international politics” while the president of En Comú Podem in Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, said that she was “one of the few PP politicians who had a project for Catalonia that went beyond cornering it and turning its back”, so, despite their ideological “differences”, she considers it a “Capital figure for the history of Catalan politics”.
The president of the Ciudadanos group in Parliament, Carlos Carrizosa, also pointed out that “Catalonia and all of Spain lose a political reference in Josep Piqué. A wise, cordial and interesting man until his last days, always at the foot of the canyon illuminating and illustrating others with his thoughts and experiences”. The current president of the PP of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, indicated that “he was one of the people with the most prodigious intelligence that I have ever known. His business, political and intellectual legacy is extraordinary. It is an honor to have learned by his side.”
The business world also mourned the death of the former minister, highlighting his career at the head of various entities and his training as an economist. The employers' association Foment del Treball, in which Piqué was present at the El Prat airport expansion commission, defined him as a “wise and calm person, with a broad economic and business vision”. For its part, the Association of Economists recalled that Piqué had been a member of the organization for more than 40 years; and the Círculo de Economía has described him as a “person of reference”: “He was a personality of the economic and political world of the first level, a person with a vision of State and a great public servant.”
Also the president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, regretted the loss of a “great politician, economist and statesman”. “We have lost a friend with whom I had the good fortune to share talks, concerns and the desire to create a better Spain,” he added. Vueling, the airline that Piqué headed between 2007 and 2013, also mourned the death. “His commitment and dedication was of great importance for the consolidation and growth of our company.”