Arantza Quiroga Cía
Arantza Quiroga Cía is a Spanish politician. She was Basque Parliament|President] of the Basque Parliament between 2009 and 2012, an office commonly known in the Anglophone world by the name of "Speaker of the Parliament". Mrs. Quiroga, who has a degree in Law, is a member of the conservative People's Party and was the leader of the Basque branch of the party until she resigned in 2015.
Born to a father from Valladolid and a Basque mother, she grew up in Irún. She became a member of the Spain-wide People's Party youth movement New [Generations of the People's Party of Spain|Nuevas Generaciones] at 21 and was elected a local councillor for Irún on the party list. Her political career began to take off three years later, when she gave a speech at a party meeting in Madrid regarding the 20th anniversary of the first democratic elections.
Quiroga was first elected to the Basque Parliament in the 1998 Basque [parliamentary election|1998 election] for the constituency of Gipuzkoa, and has since had a continuous presence in the chamber. On virtue of a deal between her party and the PSE-EE after the 2009 election, the conservatives announced that she would be their candidate for President of the Basque Parliament. She was elected as Speaker on 3 April 2009, and formally opened the new Parliament with a speech mixing Basque and Spanish.