The president of the CEOE Foundation and former Minister of Employment and Social Security in PP governments, Fátima Báñez, has lost her life in the railway accident recorded yesterday in the province of Toledo. This was communicated this Thursday, through his social media, by the president of CEIM and vice president of CEOE, Miguel Garrido.
The former minister, 59 years old, was traveling in one of the seats of the Iryo train that was struck this Wednesday by an AVE from Renfe. Both convoys had departed from Madrid bound for Seville, the city to which Báñez was heading to take part in a business event organized by the Andalusian employers' association.
From the moment the accident occurred, both the leadership of CEOE and the Popular Party were awaiting news about the whereabouts of the former minister, seeing how hopes faded as the hours went by without conclusive information.
Fátima Báñez had presided over the CEOE Foundation since July 2020, a responsibility she took on almost two years after leaving the Ministry of Employment. Born in Huelva in 1967, she held the portfolio of Employment and Social Security from December 2011 to June 2018, a period in which Mariano Rajoy was president of the Government.
During her term at the head of the Ministry, she was responsible for promoting the labor reform approved by the PP in 2012, a measure "harshly criticized by the unions and against which a general strike was called with the aim of achieving its repeal".
The former minister left the political front line in March 2019 to join the private sector. In this new stage, she was an independent director at Rovi and an external director of Iberdrola Energía Internacional. Previously, she had been an independent director at Avangrid, the U.S. subsidiary of Iberdrola, after having been part of the board of the energy company's subsidiary in Mexico.
Graduated in Law and in Economics and Business Studies from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, before becoming Employment minister she temporarily took over the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality between August and November 2016.
She was a deputy for Huelva in Congress between 2000 and 2019, a period in which she carried out relevant functions in the economic area of the Popular Parliamentary Group and served as president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress between 2018 and 2019.
Previously, between November 1997 and June 2000, she was part of the Board of Directors of Radio Televisión de Andalucía. Her professional career began in the family business as head of Strategy and Corporate Development of the group of companies (1993-1997), returning again to private activity in November 2019 as a consultant and business advisor.