# Rosa Díez

Rosa María Díez González (born 27 May 1952) is a Spanish politician from Union, Progress and Democracy, UPyD deputy in the Congress of Deputies from 2008 to 2016.
When she was a member of the PSOE, she defined herself as a social democrat exclusively. However, her way of thinking evolved towards both social democracy and political liberalism and, consequently, she defined herself as a social liberal politician who endorses free-market economics, civil liberties and the welfare state when she was UPyD's leader and spokesperson. Likewise, Rosa Díez went from being an autonomist for most of her socialist period to defending centralism, thereby being this difference regarding the form of State, as well as her rejection of anti-terrorist policy of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's socialist government, the main reason why she left the PSOE. Although she claimed to be a republican both in the PSOE and in UPyD, she ended up proclaiming herself a monarchist person "in self-defence". In addition, Rosa Díez is a secularist politician who stands up for secularity as "respect for all religious beliefs, with the exception of Islam and any other religion which isn't respectful of human rights". She also professes herself to be a constitutionalist, a feminist, a pro-Europeanist, a progressive, a Spanish patriot, a reformist and an upholder of liberal democracy.
She positioned herself on the centre-left unequivocally throughout her time as a socialist activist. Nevertheless, Rosa Díez has located herself on the centre-left and cross-sectionalism simultaneously since she left the PSOE, defending what she deems progressive from anywhere on the left–right political spectrum vehemently and asseverating that the political centre, which can only be understood, to her mind, as moderation and equidistant space between left and right, is nothingness. Furthermore, she defines herself as a "radical democrat who strives for democracy's regeneration by playing according to the rules"; expressed differently, as a "pro-institutional leader whose radical politics, moderate in form and revolutionary in essence, bothers the establishment", for she wants to "transform politics by bringing off substantial, in-depth changes from within institutions". Hence, owing to her self-proclaimed cross-sectionalism and radicalism, Rosa Díez has been linked to radical centrism.

## Career

She was a former Member of the European Parliament for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), integrated in the Party of European Socialists. In 2007 she gave up her seat and left the PSOE particularly due to disagreement on what she perceived to be the Socialists' drift on individual liberties.
She founded a new political party called Unión, Progreso y Democracia in Spanish and Union, Progress and Democracy in English (UPyD), based on the existing movement of Basque citizens against ETA violence ¡Basta Ya!. In 2008 and 2011, she was elected to the Congress of Deputies representing Madrid district. In the Spanish General Elections of 2011, she was re-elected and her party was the fourth most voted party in Spain.
Díez personally advocates for lower public wages. Subsequently, and although she was the UPyD spokesperson on five committees, she was only paid for one of them.
On 24 May 2015, she announced she would not seek reelection as spokesperson of UPyD due to the party's poor performance in the regional and municipal elections.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was proposed as prospective cabinet member in a "Salvation Government" by far-right Vox.