The Diplomat
Gabriel Mato MEP will be the Executive Secretary for International Policy in Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s new PP leadership.
Mato, who will replace Valentina Martínez Ferro in the post, will report directly to the deputy secretary of the PP Executive, the MEP Esteban González Pons, one of Feijóo’s most trusted men. In addition to international relations, he will also be responsible for Defence, Justice and Constitutional Policy.
Gabriel Mato, a 61-year-old law graduate, was born in Madrid, but lives on the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands, where he was president of the PP. He has been a member of the national parliament in two legislatures and a member of the regional Parliament of the Canary Islands, an institution he chaired between 2003 and 2007.
In 2009 he was elected Member of the European Parliament on the PP ticket and re-elected in the elections held in 2014 and 2019. In the European Parliament he is a member of the Trade Committee and a substitute member of several committees, including the Foreign Affairs and Fisheries Committees. He is also a member of the Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly.
In 2018 he was one of the MEPs who voted against the withdrawal of Hungary’s right to vote in the European Union, thus opposing the majority of European People’s Party MEPs (who voted in favour) and the bulk of the Spanish PP MEPs in the European Parliament, who abstained.
