The president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will propose this Monday during the National Executive Committee of the group the appointment of Carmen Fúnez as deputy secretary of Social Policies and Demographic Challenge. During the same meeting, Feijóo will expand the Management Committee with two new vice-secretaries: that of Culture and Open Society, which will be in charge of Borja Sémper, and that of Studies, which will be directed by Carmen Navarro.
The changes have been announced this Sunday, when Feijóo is about to celebrate one year at the helm of the Popular Party and as the main leader of the opposition. The senator and former president of the Xunta de Galicia (2009-2022) then announced that he would complete his project for the regional and general elections this year, which the PP assures “will mark the future of the country.”
The current secretary of Electoral Action, Carmen Fúnez, will become the Vice Secretary of Social Policies and Demographic Challenge. The PP assures in the statement issued this Sunday that this change seeks to “give relevance to the main challenge that Spain must face in the medium term, given the low birth rate and the high aging of the population.”
Fúnez has extensive political experience and has been responsible, together with Íñigo de la Serna, for the electoral program for the next regional and municipal elections. The current secretary she was also president of New Generations, senator, deputy in the Castilla-La Mancha Parliament and president of the Confederation of Women in Equality. As a parliamentarian, Fúnez was a speaker for the Law on Effective Equality between Women and Men and the Social Economy Law, and promoted the creation of a special commission on demographic evolution and its consequences.
More functions and more power for Borja Sémper
Sémper returned to politics as spokesperson for the PP Campaign in January of this year and after the change proposed by Feijóo, he will also serve as the new Vice-secretary for Culture and Open Society. The former spokesperson for the PP in the Basque Parliament had left politics in 2020 and currently he does not have a political position, but rather holds a position paid by the PP —still to be revealed, like that of Feijóo.
The party assures that by raising Culture to the category of Vice-secretary, the objective is to “emphasize the rank of State policy that it should have.” The PP also seeks to “show its commitment to Culture as a transversal element of society and its firm commitment to claim talent in our country.”
The PP assures that it wants to “highlight the role that education has in our society as a vehicle and mechanism for promoting the values of work, effort and responsibility among the youngest”. The deputy secretary of Sémper will also have the key competencies of Education and the Digital Challenge, which the PP considers “fundamental pillars in Spain’s future strategy”.
Carmen Navarro will coordinate the studies of the PP
For her part, Carmen Navarro leaves her responsibility in charge of Social Policies less than a year after assuming this position. Her passage through this vice-secretary has coincided with the parliamentary processing of the ‘only yes is yes’ law and the internal discrepancies over the position of the PP, which has finally been led by Cuca Gamarra and not by the corresponding vice-secretary.
Navarro will assume new powers to coordinate the studies and analysis in the match. The statement issued this Sunday defends that Navarro will contribute to enriching the PP project “at a moment of great importance in terms of the configuration of the political ideology” with which the party will go to the next elections. Navarro, assures the PP, will make these functions compatible with his recent appointment to the Board of the Congress of Deputies.
Likewise, the vacancy left by Fúnez in the Electoral Action Secretariat will be filled by David Parry, who has been part of the PP’s Communications department since 2002. Parry has worked in the Barcelona municipal group, in the Parliament of Catalonia and in the Congress of the Deputies.