Inés Arrimadas facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Inés Arrimadas
|
|
|---|---|
_(cropped)_4.jpg)
Inés Arrimadas in May 2017
|
|
| Leader of the Citizens Party | |
| In office 14 March 2020 – 15 January 2023 |
|
| Deputy | Marina Bravo Sobrino |
| Preceded by | Albert Rivera |
| Succeeded by | Patricia Guasp (as Spokesperson) |
| Spokesperson of the Citizens Group in the Congress of Deputies | |
| In office 21 May 2019 – 17 August 2023 |
|
| Preceded by | Juan Carlos Girauta |
| Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of Catalonia | |
| In office 2 October 2015 – 20 May 2019 |
|
| Preceded by | Oriol Junqueras |
| Succeeded by | Carlos Carrizosa |
| Member of the Congress of Deputies | |
| In office 21 May 2019 – 17 August 2023 |
|
| Constituency | Barcelona |
| Member of the Parliament of Catalonia | |
| In office 25 November 2012 – 20 May 2019 |
|
| Constituency | Barcelona |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 July 1981 Jerez de la Frontera, Andalusia, Spain |
| Political party | Citizens (until 2023) |
| Spouse |
Xavier Cima
(m. 2016; div. 2023) |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | Pablo de Olavide University |
Inés Arrimadas García (born 3 July 1981) is a Spanish lawyer and former politician. She was a Member of the Congress of Deputies and the main spokesperson for the Citizens political party in the Congress. Before this, she led the party's branch in Catalonia. In March 2020, she was chosen to be the overall leader of the Citizens party.
Inés Arrimadas grew up in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. Before she started working in politics, she was a consultant. She joined the Citizens party in 2011 and first became a spokesperson for their youth group. She was elected as a member of the Parliament of Catalonia in 2012. From 2015 to 2019, she was the Leader of the Opposition in the Catalan Parliament. This means she led the main party that was not in power.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Inés Arrimadas is the youngest of five children. Her parents, Rufino Arrimadas García and Inés García López, were from a town called Salmoral in the Province of Salamanca. In 2008, she moved to the city of Barcelona.
Arrimadas went to a Catholic school in Jerez de la Frontera. She became interested in Catalonia because she was a big fan of the FC Barcelona football team. This led her to take Catalan lessons from a classmate when she was in middle school. When she moved to Barcelona, her job helped her take more formal Catalan classes. She learned to speak Spanish, Catalan, English, and French very well.
When she was 18, Arrimadas began studying law at Pablo de Olavide University. She also studied international business in Nice, France, as part of a student exchange program called Erasmus programme.
After finishing her studies, Arrimadas worked in the petrochemical industry for about a year and a half. For six years, she worked as a consultant in Barcelona for a company called D'Aleph.
Political Career
Joining Politics
In 2010, a coworker invited Inés Arrimadas to an event for the Citizens political party. She decided to go and started attending more of their meetings. At one meeting, Albert Rivera, a leader of the party, was teaching about public speaking. He noticed that Arrimadas had a lot of potential. In 2011, Rivera asked her to join the Youth Commission of the Parliament of Catalonia. He also offered her a position in the party's main leadership team.
Working in Catalonia
Inés Arrimadas was elected as a member of the Parliament of Catalonia in the 2012 Catalan regional election. In 2015, she became the spokesperson for the Citizens party in Catalonia. Later that year, she was chosen to lead the party for the Catalan elections on September 27.
In those elections, the Citizens party in Catalonia received 17.9% of the votes. This helped them win more seats, going from 9 to 25. They became the largest single party that was against Catalonia becoming independent. Because of this, Inés Arrimadas became the Leader of the Opposition in the Catalan Parliament.
In the 2017 election, the Citizens party, led by Arrimadas, won the most seats for a single party. However, the parties that supported independence still had a small majority of seats in the Parliament of Catalonia.
Moving to the Congress of Deputies
In 2019, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, called for new elections. Inés Arrimadas decided to run for a seat in the Cortes Generales, which is Spain's national parliament. She was elected as a Member of the Congress of Deputies in the April 2019 election.
In the November 2019 election, her party's votes went down, but Arrimadas still kept her seat in the Congress. On March 8, 2020, Inés Arrimadas was voted the new leader of the Citizens party. She received 76.9% of the votes in the election.
Personal Life
On July 30, 2016, Inés Arrimadas married Xavier Cima. He was also a former member of the Catalan Parliament. They had two sons together. Their first son, Álex, was born in May 2020. Their second son, Marc, was born in March 2022.
See also
In Spanish: Inés Arrimadas para niños
