The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday the appointment of Héctor Gómez Hernández as the new Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, replacing Reyes Maroto; and José Manuel Miñones, as the new Minister of Health, replacing Carolina Darias.
Sánchez limited the changes in his Cabinet to filling the vacancies left by the proclamation of the PSOE candidacies of Reyes Maroto for mayor of Madrid and Carolina Darias for mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the elections of 28 May.
For Industry, Trade and Tourism, the Chief Executive has chosen the Canary Islands MP for Tenerife, Héctor Gómez, who has been one of his closest supporters and who between 2017 and 2021 was the Secretary for International Relations of the PSOE’s Federal Executive Committee.
Between 2021 and 2022, Gómez was spokesman for the Socialist Group in the Congress of Deputies and until now was the president of the Constitutional Commission of the Congress. In addition, he was director of Turespaña in 2018 and 2019.
Before coming to the Lower House, between 2015 and 2018, Gómez was a councillor in the City Council of Guía de Isora and a member of the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
Born in November 1978 and graduated in Law, he has a degree in Labour Sciences and a diploma in Tourism.
On taking over from Reyes Maroto, Sánchez described the Minister’s performance as “extraordinary”, assuring that she has played a key role in the reindustrialisation of the economy, the promotion of trade and the modernisation of the tourism sector, one of the sectors most affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
As for the Ministry of Health, the new head, José Manuel Miñones, was, from 2021 Government delegate in Galicia and was also a councillor in the City Council of Ames (A Coruña) and mayor of the same from 2015 to 2021.
Born in Santiago de Compostela in 1972, Miñones graduated in Pharmacy from the University of Santiago de Compostela and obtained his doctorate in the same speciality with an extraordinary prize. He has also been a researcher for the regional ‘Parga Pondal’ programme from 2005 to 2011, as well as a contract professor in the Department of Chemistry and Physics at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the USC.
