Miguel Arias Cañete Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids The Most Excellent Miguel Arias Cañete
Arias Cañete in 2017

European Commissioner for Climate Action
In office 1 November 2014 – 30 November 2019
President	Jean-Claude Juncker
Preceded by	Connie Hedegaard
Succeeded by	Frans Timmermans
European Commissioner for Energy
In office 1 November 2014 – 30 November 2019
President	Jean-Claude Juncker
Preceded by	Günther Oettinger
Succeeded by	Kadri Simson
Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Environment
In office 22 December 2011 – 28 April 2014
Prime Minister	Mariano Rajoy
Preceded by	Rosa Aguilar
Succeeded by	Isabel Garcia Tejerina
Minister of Agriculture, Fishing and Food
In office April 2000 – April 2004
Member of the European Parliament
In office 1 July 2014 – 31 October 2014
Constituency	Spain
In office 1 January 1986 – 19 July 1999
Constituency	Spain

Personal details
Born	(1950-02-24) 24 February 1950 (age 74) Madrid, Spain
Political party	People's Party People's Alliance
Spouses	Micaela Domecq y Solís- Beaumont
Children	4
Alma mater	Complutense University

Miguel Arias Cañete (born 24 February 1950) is a Spanish politician who served as European Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action in the Juncker Commission from 2014 to 2019.

A member of the Spanish People's Party, Arias served as Minister for Agriculture, Food and Environment in the Government of Spain from 2011 until 2014, before being selected to head his Party List in the European Parliamentary elections.

Early life and education
Career
- Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, 2011–2014
- European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, 2014–2019
Later career
Personal life
Recognition
See also

Early life and education

Arias Cañete was born to judge don Alfonso Arias de la Cuesta, and educated in Madrid, first at the Jesuit School at Chamartín before reading Law at the Universidad Complutense.

Career

After graduating in 1974, he joined the Spanish Civil Service joining the State Lawyers Corps. His first position was in the Spanish Tax Agency at Jerez de la Frontera, before transferring to the Cadiz office. In 1978 he resigned as a civil servant to become a Professor of Law at the University of Cádiz, where he remained until 1982.

Arias entered politics with the People's Alliance (AP) in 1982, serving as a member of the Parliament of Andalusia from 1982 to 1986, representing Cádiz. Arias Cañete joined the AP's national executive board during the presidency of Antonio Hernández Mancha. Once Spain joined the European Economic Community on 1 January 1986, he became a member of the European Parliament as delegate appointed by the Cortes Generales, and later, when the first election to the European Parliament took place in Spain in 1987, he was elected MEP. He served until 1999, chairing the Agricultural and Regional Politics Committees. From 1993 until 2000 he served the Spanish Senate, then was appointed as Minister of Agriculture and Fishing by Prime Minister José María Aznar.

Arias Cañete unsuccessfully bid for the Mayorship of Jerez de la Frontera vis-à-vis the 1995 and 1999 local elections, serving as municipal councillor in the opposition from 1995 to 2000. He was then elected Senator representing Cádiz in the Spanish Senate (2000–2004), and from 2004 to 2008 Deputy for Cadiz in the Spanish Congress. During the same period, he ascended inside the People's Party to "Economic Secretary" and president of its Electoral Committee. In 2008, he was elected Representative for Madrid in the Spanish Congress and Member of the European Parliament for Electoral District Madrid, which he represented until 2014.

Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, 2011–2014

In 2011 Mariano Rajoy appointed Arias as Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment in the Spanish Government. He had already served as agriculture minister from 200–2004, but the environment was a new brief for him as it was previously dealt with by a separate ministry.

During his time in office, Arias managed to get parliamentary approval of a 2013 law allowing some construction to take place closer to the coast than previously allowed, raising alarm among ecologists and opposition parties, who argued the change could further blight the Mediterranean shoreline.

European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, 2014–2019

Arias Cañete addressing the European Parliament during a debate on climate change in March 2019

In 2014, Arias was picked by Rajoy to lead the People's Party's list in the 2014 European elections. Following the elections, Spain nominated him for the Juncker Commission in August 2014. By early September, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker assigned Arias to the office of European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, where he became the first single supervisor of those two policy areas. He took office on 1 November 2014. In this capacity, he works under the guidance of Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission Vice President for Energy Union.

He represented the European Union at international climate negotiations starting at the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima, followed by COP21 in Paris for the signature of the Paris Agreement. Following the agreement, much of his mandate was spent updating EU climate and energy policy to bring it in line with meeting the EU's commitments under the agreement. Cañete also oversaw the introduction of a number of new climate policies during his mandate, including the Effort Sharing Regulation covering non-ETS emissions, a number of transport initiatives, and a regulation on greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). The LULUCF regulation marked the first time the commitment on LULUCF was enshrined in EU law (although Member States had undertaken the commitment previously). On climate policy, Arias Cañete has been responsible for the plan to introduce an overhaul of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme, the world's biggest cap-and-trade program.

In summer 2015, Arias Cañete launched a plan to turn the Mediterranean region into "a major gas marketplace" as part of European Union efforts to reduce dependency on dominant oil and gas supplier Russia. Shortly after, he brokered an agreement between France, Spain and Portugal on the MidCat gas pipeline intended to increase exports of Algerian gas into the European energy mix.

The Minister of Energy of the Republic of Turkey, Berat Albayrak, met with the European Union Commissioner for Energy and Climate, Miguel Arias Canete, at the "Second Meeting of the Turkey-EU High Level Energy Dialogue" in 2016.

In his statement during the meeting, Berat Albayrak said; We have restarted the process for the opening of the Energy Chapter with the European Union. He said that the issue of opening this chapter will be transferred from the European Commission to the European Council in a few months and that he hopes to gain momentum as before within the framework of EU membership negotiations with the opening of the 15th Energy Chapter after it is passed by the Council.

Minister Albayrak also invited Canete to the World Energy Congress to be held in Istanbul on 9–13 October 2016.

Later career

In June 2019, Arias Cañete announced his will to put an end to his political career once his mandate as commissioner expired on 1 November 2019, vowing to retire to his home in Jerez de la Frontera and to take care of his grandchildren.

Other activities include:

Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, Member of the Jury
Balam Agriculture, Independent Member of the board of directors (since 2021)
Beka Finance, member of the Board since 2021

Personal life

Arias, from a Spanish gentry family, is married to Micaela Domecq y Solís-Beaumont by whom he has four children. His wife's aristocratic family has long been established in the Jerez de la Frontera region of Andalusia, where they own large farming and livestock estates including the breeding of fighting bulls and have given their name to a world-famous brand of fortified wines.