Participants

Xavier Trias (Barcelona, 1946) has been Mayor of Barcelona since July 2011.

He graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 1970, after which he went on to complete further training in Genoa and Bern. From 1974 to 1981 he worked as a paediatrician in the Vall d’Hebron Children’s Hospital. From 1979 to 1981 he was national spokesperson for hospitals on the General Medical Council of Spain and also spokesperson for hospitals on the board of the Official Medical College of Barcelona. In 1981 he joined the Department of Health and Social Security of the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia as Head of Hospital Care Services while, in September 1983, he took over as Head of the Directorate-General of Public Health Planning and Organisation. In 1984 was appointed Director-General of the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS) and, in 1988, he was named head of the Department of Health in the Barcelona City Council, taking over from Josep Laporte, the city councillor with whom he had promoted and developed the Catalan health model. In 1996 he became Councillor for the Department of the Presidency and, since 2000, he has headed the candidacy of the political party Convergència i Unió (CiU) for elections to the Spanish Parliament while also being president and spokesperson of the Catalan Parliamentary Group for CiU in the Parliament. Moreover, he has been President of the Parliamentary Commission on Science and Technology. He has been a councillor in the Barcelona City Council since 2003 and Mayor of the city since 1 July 2011.