Fernando Morán, the foreign minister who negotiated the entry of Spain into Europe, dies at 93

Fernando Morán, who died Tuesday in Madrid at age 93, was in December 1982 the grandfather of the first socialist government of the recovered Spanish democracy. In a Cabinet whose president had just premiered in his forties and which the international press baptized as the "young Spanish nationalists," the head of Foreign Affairs had already 56. Faced with the inexperience of his fellow Council of Ministers, Morán accumulated a long career diplomatic: he had been consul general in London (with Manuel Fraga as ambassador) and general director of Foreign Policy for Africa and Continental Asia, among other destinations.

In 1974, in the aftermath of Franco, he joined the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) of Enrique Tierno Galván and from there negotiated the landing of this select group of professors and intellectuals in the new PSOE refounded by the Sevillian clan headed by Felipe González. In the first democratic elections of 1977 he was elected senator for Asturias, his native community, since he was born in Aviles in 1926.

When he joined the Executive, Morán not only brought behind him a solid background in the Administration but also a long career as a writer, with a dozen books published; among them A foreign policy for Spain , the manual in which he designed the road map for a country out of forty years of dictatorship and international isolation.

Faced with the improvisation of some of his cabinet colleagues, Morán had a plan that was implemented step by step: opening of the gate of Gibraltar, which Franco had closed feeding the hostility of the plains towards Spain; negotiation of the accession treaty to the European Economic Community (the current EU), which he completed and signed, even if it was ceased before its entry into force; or discussion of the new bilateral agreement with the United States, not exempt from tensions, given the requirement to leave the US fighters from the Torrejón base, near Madrid.

His condition as a veteran in a youth government and his appearance as a clueless and grumpy teacher made him the object of multiple jokes that he did not quite fit, although after his apparent cruelty most of the time they hid large doses of tenderness.

The firmness of his convictions eventually clashed with the president's team in La Moncloa, which was increasingly taking center stage in foreign policy, in what he interpreted as external interference. In July 1985, when the referendum on NATO (which the PSOE had promised to remove Spain from the Atlantic Alliance and ended up serving to ratify its permanence) was prepared, it was replaced by Francisco Fernández Ordonez in front of the Palace of Santa Cruz.

From there it became a cumbersome Chinese vase. In the dome of the party he was suspicious of his strong character, but his undoubted popularity could not be wasted either. After leaving the Government he was appointed ambassador to the United Nations and, in 1987, he headed the PSOE list to the European Parliament, where he held a seat for a decade. In 1999 he was a candidate for mayor of Madrid, but lost to the popular José María Álvarez del Manzano. The following year he resigned as councilman and left political life.

He married María Luz Calvo-Sotelo Bustelo, sister of the former president of the Government with UCD, and had three children, including Fernando Morán, a diplomat like him.

The news of his death, advanced by the digital The Diplomat in Spain , has been confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The president of the Congress, Meritxell Batet, has paid tribute to her, with all the deputies standing, while the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has remembered his "indelible legacy" and his "deep Europeanism." The burning chapel of the former minister will be installed early this afternoon at the Pozuelo de Alarcón funeral home.