Political groups

2014-2019: Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats)

National parties

2014-2019: Partido Popular

Biography

Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso was born in Murcia, Spain. He received a degree in the history of art from the University of Murcia and worked as a professor of art history and a researcher of customs and popular traditions of Murcia.

Valcárcel started his political career in 1982, the year in which he joined the Popular Alliance (now the People's Party) and later took on responsibility for the territorial organisation of the local assembly of the municipality of Murcia. In October 1983, he became a member of the Executive Regional Committee of the People's Party, as the person in charge of the Territorial Area of the Region of Murcia. Four years later, in 1987, he was nominated a regional Vice-President of the People's Party. 

In the municipal elections of 1987, he was elected a councilman of the Town of Murcia, acceding to the function of president and speaker of the municipal group for the People's Party. In 1991, as head of list of the People's Party, he won the municipal elections to the Town of Murcia, though an agreement between the Socialist and the United Left parties prevented him from acceding to the post of mayor. In November 1991, he was elected President of the People's Party of the Region of Murcia, a post that he would retain for several elections. He became President of the Region of Murcia in May 1995. 

While President of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, he occupied diverse positions in the Committee of the Regions of the European Union and the Intermediterranean Commission of the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions of Europe. He was a Vice-President of the Group of the European People's Party in the Committee of the Regions. In 2003, he was part of the Delegation of the Committee of the Regions in the European Convention that was entrusted with the elaboration of the Constitutional Agreement for the European Union. Between 2004 and 2006, he was President of the Committee of the Regions' Commission for External Relations. In July 2012, he was elected President of the Committee of the Regions for a two-and-a-half-year term, succeeding Mercedes Bresso.

Plenary session of the Committee of the Regions. L-R: Gerhard Stahl, Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso, Martin Schulz, Mercedes Bresso © European Union 2013 - European Parliament

From February 2002, Valcárcel was a member of the Commission for Territorial Cohesion, and from March 2006, member of the Commission for Sustainable Development. From September 2002, Valcárcel was the Vice-President of the Political Bureau of the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions of Europe. Between 1999 and 2001, he presided at the Intermediterranean Commission.

On 14 April 2014, Valcárcel resigned as President of the Region of Murcia as he was one of the People's Party's candidates in the European Parliament elections. He became one of sixteen MEPs elected by the People's Party. Valcárcel served as Vice-President of the European Parliament and was a member of its Committee on Regional Development. He was also a member of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries, the Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean and a subsititute member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Delegation for relations with Palestine.

For more information on his time as an MEP, click here. 

Selected plenary speeches

In 2015, the Committee on Regional Development appointed Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso rapporteur for the own-initiative report on Cohesion Policy and Research and Innovation Strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3). In this capacity, he addressed the plenary session on 12 September 2016.

Part 1:

Part 2:

On 5 July 2017, in the plenary debate on the forest fires in Portugal and Spain: EU response instruments and procedures on prevention and civil protection, Valcárcel emphasised the importance of the EU Solidarity Fund and the need for active prevention, awareness-raising and effective forest management:

On 2 July 2018, Valcárcel spoke in his capacity as shadow rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development's report on the proposal for a regulation on integrated farm statistics:

What’s in the archives?

Documents in the fonds relate largely to the activity of Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso as Vice-President of the European Parliament, with a predominance of Bureau meeting dossiers. In addition to the minutes of the meetings, the main interest in this deposit lies in additional documents or documents submitted for study during meetings (reports, studies, notes) and their illustration of the Vice-President’s work. 

The documents are divided into two sections:

• Member of the Bureau, containing information on Bureau meetings from 2014 to 2019 and meetings of the working groups (Audit Panel, buildings and transport, communication, innovation and security);
• Interparliamentary relations, containing information on the meetings of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs (COSAC) held in 2014 and 2016.