Socialist mastermind

One of the strong men of Spain is gaining an international reputation.

Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba is not an international figure, and does not look or behave like one. But he is one of the strong men of Spain, with a long involvement in national politics, yet still young enough to be spoken of a possible future leader. And his management of the delicate justice and home affairs portfolio during the Spanish presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers is winning him a growing reputation in the European Union too.

His characteristically earnest expression – more of the reflective bloodhound than the aggressive terrier – is deceptive. Since he was appointed interior minister in 2006, he has scored some significant successes in the bloody conflict with ETA, the Basque separatist group. And he has repeatedly bared his teeth and bitten back sharply in the harshly polarised world of Spanish politics, in which the two main parties tend to subordinate nearly every national issue to their bitter and highly personalised feuding.

His responsibilities put him in the forefront of national debate over some of the hottest topics in Spain: Security, the police, explosives and firearms, and prisons – all sensitive factors in the battle against ETA. Immigration, frontier controls and asylum – at a time when Spain faces waves of illegal migrants. Intelligence services and the fight against organised crime – amidst constant allegations by opposition figures of harassment and abusive investigation of corruption. And international security and the fight against terrorism in a country still deeply marked by al-Qaeda’s devastating attacks on commuter trains in 2004.

It is a world far removed from his first involvement with the socialist movement in the early 1970s, when he was a 100 metres university champion working towards a PhD in chemistry. Joaquín Almunia, now a vice-president of the European Commission but previously a leader of the Spanish Socialist Party, the PSOE, recalls that Rubalcaba “was – of course – involved in the anti-Franco political scene, like many university students at the time”.

He proved valuable to the party on education and research issues, and after Felipe González led the Socialists into government in 1982, Rubalcaba was given increasingly influential positions in education. He became state secretary for education in 1988, under his fellow-scientist and university colleague, Javier Solana – whom he succeeded as minister when Solana became foreign minister. When González was re-elected in 1993, he promoted Rubalcaba beyond education, to the eminently political post of minister of the presidency, as his chief co-ordinator and negotiator.

In opposition, in the late 1990s, Rubalcaba’s capacities were recognised by the new party leader, Almunia, who tasked him with a key role in communication and with liaising on ETA with the centre-right Partido Popular (PP) government led by José Maria Aznar. His skills were also appreciated by Almunia’s successor, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who put him in charge of the Socialist delegation negotiating a pact on liberties and counter-terrorism with the PP in 2000. By 2004, Rubalcaba’s reputation was so high that he was chosen as the mastermind of the PSOE strategy in the general election. He is widely credited with bringing the Socialists back to power.

Almunia describes his one-time protégé with warmth. “He is extremely capable, and smart…an indispensable colleague. He was for Felipe González, he was for me, and, since 2004, he has been for Zapatero.” He depicts Rubalcaba as “an indefatigable worker, who takes no time off”, a source of “reliably intelligent advice”, and as a man with “a capacity for communication”. As interior minister, Rubalcaba “has raised his political status even higher. He is the best expert in anti-terrorism strategy, and he knows better than most Basques which road will most quickly lead to finishing off ETA,” says Almunia.

At the European level, Gilles De Kerchove, the EU’s anti-terrorism co-ordinator, is also highly appreciative of this “heavyweight” – for his charm, his intelli-gence, his high political sensitivity, and for the “full support” Rubalcaba has given him. He was also impressed by Rubal-caba’s initiatives after the failed Detroit plane-bombing last December, moving prudently ahead on the sensitive subject of body scanners (“he had real discussions, without going faster or further than was politically possible”), and inviting Janet Napolitano, the US’ homeland security supremo, to talks (helping, De Kerchove says, to “rebuild a strong and close relationship with the US after the tensions since Spain’s withdrawal from Iraq”).

Fact File

Curriculum Vitae

1951: Born, Solares, Cantabria
1974: Joined the PSOE
1978: Doctorate in chemistry, Complutense University of Madrid
1979-: Professor, Complutense University of Madrid
1988-92: Secretary of state for education
1992-: Member of parliament
1992-93: Education and science minister
1993-96: Minister of the presidency and government spokesman
1997-: Member of the PSOE executive
2004-06: PSOE spokesman in the parliament
2006-: Interior minister

Almunia sees “only one great defect”. Rubalcaba, he comments affectionately, “supports Real Madrid. Neither Felipe González (who supports Real Betis), nor Zapatero (who supports Barcelona) nor I (who support Atletico Madrid) can understand how someone so intelligent can fail to see the error of his ways.”

But not everyone shares the admiration. When Rubalcaba was nominated as interior minister, opposition leader Mariano Rajoy regretted the appointment of “a person the PP cannot trust”, because – he explained – of “dark corners” in his past. Rubalcaba’s detractors – and there are many on the right and on the left – portray him as a political conspirator, a prince of darkness in the mould of Peter Mandelson or Machiavelli, a workaholic dedicated pragmatically to the task in hand, engaged without principle or strategic vision, serving efficiently whomever happens to be his boss.

His prominence in the González government – which is still the object of unproven suspicions that it secretly supported the ‘dirty war’ waged against ETA by the paramilitary Anti-Terrorism Liberation Group (GAL) – is still frequently invoked by critics keen to smear him. In an attack in the Spanish parliament last year, Ignacio Cosidó, the shadow interior minister, said that Rubalcaba “as spokesman for the ‘GAL government’, has no moral authority to speak about truth and lies”. A clearly incensed Rubalcaba responded tartly: “The only people who still talk about GAL are you and ETA.” Others accuse him of persistently blocking the release of secret-service files relating to GAL, and of employing unconstitutional methods in current actions too, both against ETA and in the pursuit of anti-corruption cases.

Yet in a country wracked by wider political and economic crises, Rubalcaba is one of the few ministers with a record of demonstrable success. His careful approach to fighting terrorism is yielding results at home and he is cajoling the EU, too, into more constructive co-operation. His stock continues to rise. If he does not choose to abandon politics to spend more time with his wife, he may show that he can not only serve party leaders, but can also succeed them.