Fátima Báñez

María Fátima Báñez García was born on 6 January 1967 in San Juan del Puerto, in the province of Huelva, Andalusia. She studied at the Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid (ICADE), graduating in law and in economics and business studies. According to ABC, she later completed postgraduate business administration studies at Harvard University and a public leadership programme at IESE Business School.

Báñez began her public career in Andalusia. She sat on the board of Radio y Televisión de Andalucía from 1997 to 2000 and joined the executive of the People's Party of Andalusia under Javier Arenas in the mid 1990s, later serving as coordinator of the presidency of the regional party.

In 2000 she was elected to the Congress of Deputies for Huelva and was re-elected at every election until she stood down in 2019. In parliament she was the People's Party spokeswoman on the Budget Committee, sat on the Economy and Finance and the Industry, Tourism and Trade committees, and from 2008 was part of the party's economic team as deputy spokeswoman.

On 22 December 2011 Mariano Rajoy appointed her Minister of Employment and Social Security, succeeding Valeriano Gómez. She was the first woman to hold the post. Unemployment stood at more than 5.2 million and the jobless rate at 22.85 percent. On 10 February 2012 her ministry launched the government's labour reform, which lowered severance pay for unfair dismissal from 45 to 33 days per year worked. It was supported by the European Commission, the Bank of Spain and the OECD, but the unions called a general strike on 29 March 2012. Unemployment peaked at more than six million in early 2013 and fell to about 3.25 million by the end of her term. Her ministry also created a maternity supplement for pensions and extended paternity leave to four weeks. From August 2016 she also ran the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality on an interim basis.

She left government when Rajoy lost a no confidence vote in June 2018, and chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress from November 2018 to March 2019. In July 2019 she joined the CEOE as an adviser to its president, Antonio Garamendi, and that year became an independent director of the pharmaceutical group Rovi. In December 2019 she was named president of the Fundación CEOE. From February 2025 she was also an external board member of Iberdrola Energía Internacional.

Báñez was married and had two children. People who worked with her described her as discreet, friendly, approachable and rigorous, and she often said that a good agreement was always better than none.

Fátima Báñez died on 28 October 2026, aged 59, in the collision of two high speed trains on the Madrid to Seville line between Urda and Los Yébenes, in the province of Toledo. She was travelling in one of the worst affected carriages of an Iryo train that was struck from behind by a Renfe AVE. She was on her way to Seville for the Business Day of the Confederation of Employers of Andalusia (CEA).

For several hours after the crash the CEOE and the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz, said she could not be located, and her family travelled to the scene. Her death was reported that afternoon by ABC, The Objective, El Debate and other outlets, citing People's Party sources. The regional government of Castilla-La Mancha put the death toll of the crash at 64 at the time. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Báñez is remembered above all for the 2012 labour reform, which remained in place in its main structure even after later governments modified it in 2021. Supporters credited it with helping Spain recover from mass unemployment, while unions saw it as cheapening dismissal. As the first woman to lead Spain's employment ministry and later as president of the Fundación CEOE, she was one of the most prominent women in Spanish economic policy of her generation.