Josep María Trías de Bes

Josep María Trías de Bes i Serra was born in Madrid on 19 November 1944. His father was a diplomat, which explains the Madrid birthplace, while the family belonged to a long Barcelona line of lawyers and politicians. His grandfather, Josep Maria Trias de Bes i Giró, was an international-law professor and Lliga Regionalista deputy under the Restoration and the Second Republic.

He was educated at the Liceo Francés in Barcelona and graduated in law from the University of Barcelona in 1968, with a focus on commercial and civil law. In the mid-1960s he took part in student opposition, including the Caputxinada of 1966 that helped form the Democratic Students' Union of the University of Barcelona.

After early work with Convergència Socialista de Catalunya, Trías de Bes became a founding figure of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya and sat on its executive and national council from 1976. He entered the Congress of Deputies for Barcelona in September 1980 and held seats for CiU through the 1980s, serving as fourth secretary (1982-1989) and fourth vice-president (1989-1993).

Disagreeing with Jordi Pujol over CiU's national role and later over linguistic policy and ties to the PSOE, he left the lists in 1993 and quit CDC in 1995. He joined the Partido Popular, headed its Barcelona list in 1996, and returned briefly to Congress before resigning that July to chair Trasmediterránea (1996-1999). He also sat on the RTVE board. In 2009 he left the PP and joined Unión, Progreso y Democracia for a period, while continuing private legal practice.

Trías de Bes married Consuelo Maqueda de Anta, a labour lawyer and PSC-PSOE activist. On 24 July 1984 she was murdered in her Barcelona law office by a disturbed attacker, together with a textile-association employee. The killing was widely reported in the Spanish press. Beyond parliamentary life he remained active as a commercial lawyer in Barcelona and kept links to civic campaigns, including public support for the 2006 Catalan statute of autonomy.

Josep María Trías de Bes died in Barcelona on 10 September 2026, aged 81. Spanish outlets including La Vanguardia and El Mundo reported the death the following day. Family announcements said a wake would be held at the Sant Gervasi funeral home in Barcelona, with a funeral ceremony there on 12 September 2026. Reports placed his final residence in a geriatric care home. No public medical cause of death was issued.

Trías de Bes is remembered as a CDC founder who rose to the Congress leadership table, then made a rare and controversial move into the PP as José María Aznar sought a moderate Catalan opening. His short 1996 return to Congress and subsequent chairmanship of Trasmediterránea marked the end of his front-line electoral career, but he remained a reference point in debates about Catalonia's place in Spanish governance. English and Spanish encyclopaedia entries and contemporary obituaries record a path across CiU, the PP and UPyD that few Catalan politicians of his generation followed.