Juan Carlos Girauta

Juan Carlos Girauta
Juan Carlos Girauta in 2024
Member of the European Parliament
for Spain
Incumbent
Assumed office
16 July 2024
In office
1 July 2014 – 11 January 2016
Member of the Congress of Deputies
In office
7 January 2016 – 24 September 2019
ConstituencyBarcelona (2016–2019)
Toledo (2019)
Personal details
Born12 March 1961 (1961-03-12) (age 63)
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Political partyVox (2024–present)
Other political
affiliations		PSC (1980–1986)
PP (2003–2013)
Cs (2014–2020)
Alma materUniversity of Barcelona
ESADE
OccupationColumnist • Lawyer • Politician

Juan Carlos Girauta (Spanish pronunciation: [xwaŋˈkaɾlos xiˈɾawta]; born 12 March 1961) is a Spanish politician who served as Member of the Congress of Deputies in the 2016–2019 legislature.[1] Previously, he has served as Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2016, representing Spain for the Citizens political party.[2]

A former PSC member, Girauta later joined the PP[3] and became a prolific contributor to conservative journalism from his Libertad Digital column,[4] before becoming a Citizens member and candidate in the 2014 European election.[5] For years he lent support to the conspiracy theory about the authorship of the 11-M Madrid train bombings in 2004.[6]

During his long tenure as Libertad Digital columnist and COPE debater, Girauta expressed strong sympathies for right-wing Zionism (to the point of calling then-president Zapatero an anti-Semite[7]) and lent credibility [8][9] to the now discredited book by Victor Farías [10] dismissing Socialist politician Salvador Allende as a racist and a Social Darwinist, without clarifying that the quotations about genetic determinism in Allende's doctoral dissertation were themselves quotations from other authors (mostly Cesare Lombroso) or the fact that Allende was highly critical of these conclusions in his thesis, which was later published [11] as a rebuttal to Farías' position. Farías was later sued for this[12] but Girauta never retracted his statements.

He ran as candidate to lead the list of the party in Toledo the April 2019 general election; more than half of the Talavera de la Reina's Cs branch resigned en masse from party membership, lamenting (among other reasons) such a move.[13][14] He won the party primary nonetheless and he subsequently renewed his seat at the Lower House at the election. He stood again as candidate for Toledo at the November 2019 general election. This time he failed to earn a seat.

On 5 May 2020 Girauta announced his resignation from Ciudadanos, in disagreement with the party stance to vote in favour of the extension of the State of Alarm during the COVID-19 pandemic.[15] Soon after, in June 2020, he declared his former colleagues remaining in Cs to be "traitors" and threatened they "were going to suck his dick by taking turns".[16]

Girauta appeared as an independent in the 3rd position of the list presented by far-right Vox to the 2024 elections to the European Parliament.[17]

  1. ^ EFE, Agencia (2019-07-30). "Girauta, nuevo presidente de la Comisión de Defensa". COPE (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-07-30.
  2. ^ "Juan Carlos GIRAUTA VIDAL". europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 2016-03-30.
  3. ^ "Untitled Document". elmundo.es. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  4. ^ "Juan Carlos Girauta se explica" (in Spanish).
  5. ^ abc (22 February 2014). "Nart, Girauta y Punset, candidatos de Ciudadanos a las elecciones europeas". ABC.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  6. ^ Ibáñez, María José (15 December 2015). "Girauta y la teoría de la conspiración". El Periódico.
  7. ^ Juan Carlos Girauta (21 July 2006). "El presidente y el gobierno, antisemitas" (in Spanish).
  8. ^ Juan Carlos Girauta (26 May 2005). "¿Quién era realmente Salvador Allende? (I)" (in Spanish).
  9. ^ Juan Carlos Girauta (3 May 2005). "¿Quién era realmente Salvador Allende? (y II)" (in Spanish).
  10. ^ Julio Silva Solar (30 January 2007). "Victor Farías y su fobia contra Salvador Allende" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 6 October 2016.
  11. ^ "Salvador Allende: Higiene Mental y Delincuencia" (PDF) (in Spanish). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-07-21.
  12. ^ "Extracts from the suit filed by the Fundación Salvador Allende" (PDF) (in Spanish).
  13. ^ "Girauta defiende su derecho a ser candidato por Toledo ante las críticas de dirigentes de Ciudadanos en Talavera". eldiario.es. 14 March 2019.
  14. ^ "Dimite más de la mitad de la Junta Directiva de Cs en Talavera por la candidatura de Girauta por Toledo". eldiario.es. 14 March 2020.
  15. ^ "Girauta se da de baja en Cs tras el pacto de Arrimadas con Sánchez". El Independiente. 2020-05-05.
  16. ^ Moraga, Carmen (5 June 2020). "Girauta y Marcos de Quinto se desatan en Twitter con insultos e improperios contra Ciudadanos y el Gobierno". eldiario.es.
  17. ^ "Madrid | Elections to the European Parliament 2024". info.eleccioneseuropeas2024.es. Retrieved 3 June 2024.