José Luis Martínez-Almeida

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Martínez-Almeida and the second or maternal family name is Navasqüés.

José Luis Martínez-Almeida
Martínez-Almeida in 2019
Mayor of Madrid
Incumbent
Assumed office
15 June 2019
DeputyBegoña Villacís
Inma Sanz
Preceded byManuela Carmena
National spokesperson of the People's Party
In office
20 August 2020 – 22 February 2022
LeaderPablo Casado
Preceded byOffice created
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Member of the City Council of Madrid
Incumbent
Assumed office
13 June 2015
Personal details
Born
José Luis Martínez-Almeida Navasqüés

(1975-04-17) 17 April 1975 (age 49)
Madrid, Spain
Political partyPeople's Party
Spouse
Teresa Urquijo
​
(m. 2024)​
Alma materComillas Pontifical University

José Luis Martínez-Almeida Navasqüés (born 17 April 1975) is a Spanish state lawyer and politician. A member of the People's Party (PP), he has been a member of the Madrid City Council since 2015 and has been Mayor of Madrid since 2019.

Biography

Martínez-Almeida was born in Madrid on 17 April 1975. His grandfather Pablo Martínez-Almeida y Nacarino was a member of the Privy Council of the Count of Barcelona, he is the youngest of the six children of Rafael Martínez-Almeida y León y Castillo and Ángela Navasqüés Cobián. He studied at the Retamar School in Pozuelo de Alarcón, linked to the Opus Dei.[1] Martínez-Almeida affiliated to the People's Party (PP) when he was 20 years old,[2] and he earned a Licentiate degree in law at the ICADE (Comillas Pontifical University) in 1998.[2] In 2001, he joined the State Lawyers Corps.[3]

He served as Director-General for Historic Heritage of the Community of Madrid from 2007 to 2011. In 2011, Esperanza Aguirre, the region's premier, appointed him as Secretary of the Council of Government of the Community of Madrid. He left the regional government in 2013 in order to become a member of the General Secretariat and Council of state-owned enterprise SEPIDES (currently SEPI) as Secretary of the Law Division. He left this post in 2015.

Aguirre included Martínez-Almeida as a principal figure in the candidacy of PP for the 2015 Madrid municipal election and the later became municipal councillor. In 2017, as Aguirre resigned from her last offices following the detention of her political "dauphin" Ignacio González, Martínez-Almeida replaced her as Spokesperson of the PP's Municipal Group in the City Council.[4] His interventions as leader of the opposition made him widely known.[5]

In July 2018, he was appointed member of the National Executive Committee of the PP after the election of Pablo Casado as party leader.[6]

In January 2019, he was designated candidate of the PP to be the next Mayor of Madrid.[7]

In January 2024, he announced his engagement [8] to Teresa Urquijo y Moreno, the great-granddaughter of Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria.

Mayor of Madrid

He ran first in the PP list for the 2019 Madrid City Council election. Martínez-Almeida lost the council election against Manuela Carmena, Más Madrid, but due to a coalition agreement among PP Popular Party, C's Citizens and Vox, he was invested as Mayor on 15 June 2019, during the opening session of the new municipal corporation.[9]

During the campaign, the PP pledged to get rid of the star measure of the previous municipal administration: the low emission zone Madrid Central.[10] As promised, on July 1,[11] the City Council led by Martínez-Almeida suspended the system for three months by ceasing to fine infractions. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace cut roads in protest.[12] However, a week later a court in Madrid restored the fines.[13] After more than one year of legal dispute, in July 2020, the derogation of the measure was supported by a judicial sentence, but the municipal government maintained the fines.[14]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, Martínez-Almeida garnered the support of all parties in the City Council.[peacock prose][15] His performance gained him notoriety and recognition.[peacock prose][16][17] After the first confinement, the City Council of Madrid was the first major administration[peacock prose] to reach a transversal[weasel words] reconstruction plan.[18][19][20][21]

In September 2021, Almeida's government banned the in-person participation of neighbors in the plenary meetings of the district councils.[22]

He tested positive for COVID-19 on 21 December 2021 during the pandemic in Spain.[23]

In April 2022, it came to light that his government was involved in a scandal for awarding several contracts to companies managed by aristocrat Luis Medina Abascal, son of Nati Abascal and the Duke of Feria; and his partner, Alberto Javier Luceño Cerón, two businessmen who mediated in the purchase of sanitary material with the Madrid City Council in March 2020, during the worst moment of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain and a few days after the state of alarm was declared,[24] with whom them both took millionaire commissions for various contracts, being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.[25]

Personal life

On 7 April 2024, at the church of San Francisco de Borja in Madrid, Martínez-Almeida married Teresa Urquijo y Moreno, a granddaughter of Princess Teresa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.[26]

He is a fan of football club Atlético Madrid.[27]

References

  1. ^ Lantigua, Isabel F. (15 June 2019). "José Luis Martínez-Almeida, el alcalde optimista". El Mundo (in Spanish). Unidad Editorial Información General, S.L.U.
  2. ^ a b "José Luis Martínez-Almeida, el valor del escalafón". Telemadrid (in Spanish). 7 May 2019. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  3. ^ "José Luis Martínez-Almeida, candidato del PP al Ayuntamiento de Madrid". Madridiario (in Spanish). 21 May 2019. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  4. ^ Belver, Marta (28 April 2017). "José Luis Martínez-Almeida, un abogado del Estado de verbo ágil para sustituir a Esperanza Aguirre". El Mundo (in Spanish). Unidad Editorial. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  5. ^ Y Redacción, Agencias (27 May 2019). "Martínez-Almeida, un 'colchonero' fan del 'cholismo' en el Palacio de Cibeles". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  6. ^ "Casado incorpora a Martínez Almeida, Díaz Ayuso, Vera y González Terol en el nuevo Comité Ejecutivo del PP". Europa Press. 26 July 2018. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  7. ^ G. Rivas, Tatiana; Medialdea, Sara (11 January 2019). "Isabel Díaz Ayuso y Martínez-Almeida, candidatos del PP a la Comunidad y al Ayuntamiento de Madrid". ABC (in Spanish). Vocento. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  8. ^ [1] (in Spanish)
  9. ^ Rodríguez-Pina, Gloria; Mateo, Juan José (15 June 2019). "El popular Martínez Almeida, alcalde de Madrid con los votos de Ciudadanos y la ultraderecha". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  10. ^ Agencias, El Periódico / (26 March 2019). "Más Madrid apuesta por ampliar Madrid Central y el PP y Vox por eliminarlo". elperiodico (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  11. ^ Minder, Raphael (1 July 2019). "As Cities Limit Traffic Pollution, Madrid Reverses a Driving Ban". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  12. ^ Objective, The (July 2019). "Activistas de Greenpeace cortan el acceso al tráfico a Madrid Central". The Objective | Periodismo ethos (in European Spanish). Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  13. ^ Medina, Miguel Ángel; León, Pablo; País, El (8 July 2019). "On judge's orders, Madrid Central low-emissions scheme back in action". El País. ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  14. ^ Medina, Miguel Ángel (28 July 2020). "La Justicia anula Madrid Central por defectos formales pero las multas continuarán". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  15. ^ De Vega, Luis/ (18 April 2020). "Más Madrid ofrece a Almeida su "apoyo total" ante la crisis". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  16. ^ Martin, Anai. "Revolución en Madrid: un sondeo dispara a Ayuso y Almeida por su titánica labor". EsDiario (in European Spanish). Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  17. ^ Pardo, Liarla (10 May 2020). "La surrealista interrupción a la entrevista de Almeida en Liarla Pardo por aplausos al alcalde". La Sexta. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  18. ^ González, Yolanda. "Almeida pone en un aprieto a Casado y Ayuso con su pacto de reconstrucción en Madrid". infoLibre (in European Spanish). Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  19. ^ De Vega, Luis (25 May 2020). "El Gobierno municipal confirma que Vox se une al proceso de reconstrucción pese a tratar de vetar a Villacís". El País. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  20. ^ De Vega, Luis (25 May 2020). "El Ayuntamiento de Madrid se da un mes para consensuar con la oposición una salida a la crisis". El País. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  21. ^ De Vega, Luis (29 May 2020). "El Ayuntamiento aprueba sin votos en contra 66 millones de rebaja fiscal para afrontar la pandemia". El País. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  22. ^ Caballero, Fátima (15 September 2021). "El Ayuntamiento de Madrid prohíbe la participación presencial de los vecinos en los plenos de distrito". eldiario.es.
  23. ^ "El alcalde de Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, positivo en coronavirus". ABC Madrid (in Spanish). 21 December 2021.
  24. ^ Águeda, Pedro; Pozas, Alberto (31 March 2022). "Anticorrupción investiga comisiones millonarias en compras de material sanitario por el Ayuntamiento de Madrid". ElDiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  25. ^ Moraga, Carmen (17 April 2022). "El contrato de las mascarillas de Almeida se aprobó por WhatsApp y de madrugada". ElDiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  26. ^ Harriet Johnston, "Felicidades! European royalty and Spanish aristocracy come together to celebrate as Teresa Urquijo, granddaughter of Princess Teresa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, marries the Mayor of Madrid", Tatler, 8 April 2024, accessed 9 April 2024
  27. ^ Piñón, Manu (27 May 2019). "La conexión con la realeza de Martínez-Almeida, el próximo alcalde de Madrid". Vanity Fair (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 October 2019.
Political offices
Preceded by Director-General for Historical Heritage of the Community of Madrid
2007–2011 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Mayor of Madrid
Since 2019 		Incumbent