Artur Mas i Gavarró

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Artur Mas i Gavarró
1st Prime Minister of the Generalitat de Catalunya
In office January 19, 2001 – December 20, 2003
President	Jordi Pujol i Soley
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira
Minister of Economy and Finance of the Generalitat de Catalunya
In office July 30, 1997 – January 17, 2001
President	Jordi Pujol i Soley
Preceded by	Macià Alavedra i Moner
Succeeded by	Francesc Homs i Ferret
Minister of Town and Country Town and Public Works of the Generalitat de Catalunya
In office June 15, 1995 – July 30, 1997
President	Jordi Pujol i Soley
Preceded by	Jaume Roma i Rodríguez
Succeeded by	Pere Macias
Born	January 31, 1956 (1956-01-31) (age 52) Barcelona, Catalonia
Political party	Convergència i Unió (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia)
Spouse	Helena Rakosnik
Children	two sons and one daughter
Occupation	Politician and Economist

Artur Mas i Gavarró (born January 31, 1956) is a Catalan politician. He is currently the leader of the Catalan nationalist party Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), the main opposition party in the Catalan autonomous parliament. His first high responsibilities in Catalan politics came under the shade of the former President, for more than 23 years, Jordi Pujol.

Artur Mas ran for the 2003 elections to the Catalan government and won a plurality of seats in the parliament, with four more than PSC. However, the latter obtained a slightly higher amount of votes (this discrepancy between votes and seats obtained is explained by the electoral law and the way seats are assigned). Finally Pasqual Maragall i Mira was elected President, with the support of PSC and two more left-wing parties (ERC and ICV).

Mas ran again for president of the Generalitat in the November 1st 2006 elections. Though -unlike in the previous elections- his party CIU won these both in number of votes and seats, it did not reach the absolute majority of seats in the parliament, allowing the PSC-PSOE to reach an absolute majority by repeating the coalition government with the same left wing partners (ERC and ICV). This situation is an untypical case in Spanish politics, where the traditional use is that the first most voted party is entitled to access to government, through the appropriate agreements with other parliamentarian forces.

Artur Mas has put special emphasis in recent times to open a process, so-called 'Refoundation of Catalanism' (in Catalan, 'Refundació del Catalanisme'), to build upon the principles and values of the Catalan movement, in order to enlarge the social majority, in Catalonia, that expresses a nationalist feeling, not necessarily inside his party, Convergència. Although this process is only at an early stage, it is expected that will have notable repercussion in the political activity in a medium term, particularly after the general congress that Convergència and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, the two main nationalist parties in Catalonia, will hold in July and June 2008, respectively. Interestingly, the 'Refoundation of Catalanism' that Mas is actively leading promotes that Catalonia obtain the so-called 'Right to decide' in its matters of interest, which implicitly includes the possibility to put independence from Spain in a hypothetic referendum. This point is significantly close from the traditionally more separatist positions of Esquerra. Artur Mas expressed the main objectives and the rationale for this 'Refoundation' in an important conference held in the 'Palau de Congressos de Catalunya', Barcelona, November 20th, 2007.

Regarding personal details and skills, Mas is an Economist who obtained his degree in the University of Barcelona (UB), and is fluent in English and French, besides Catalan and Spanish. Before getting involved in high responsibilities in the Catalan government, he held different posts both in the private and public sectors, especially relating to the internationalization of the Catalan enterprises. His ideology tends to be considered as liberal, from the economic point of view, and strongly pro-European. He wrote the foreword of one of the books of Al Gore, former vice-president of the United States during the Clinton Administration.

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