Javier Solana

Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga (fɾanˈθisko xaˈβjeɾ soˈlana ðe maðaˈɾjaɣa; born 14 July 1942) is a Spanish physicist and PSOE politician. After serving in the Spanish government as Foreign Affairs Minister under Felipe González (1992–1995) and as the Secretary General of NATO (1995–1999), leading the alliance during Operation Allied Force, he was appointed the European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary General of the Council of the European Union and Secretary-General of the Western European Union and held these posts from October 1999 until December 2009. Solana was born in Madrid, Spain. He comes from a prominent Spanish family, being a first cousin, twice removed, of diplomat, writer, historian, and pacifist Salvador de Madariaga (Javier's grandfather, Rogelio de Madariaga and Salvador de Madariaga were cousins). His father was a chemistry professor, Luis Solana San Martín, who died when Javier was nineteen. His mother, Obdulia de Madariaga Pérez, died in 2005. Javier is the third of five children. His older brother Luis was once imprisoned for his political activities opposing the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, subsequently became a distinguished leader in the Spanish telecommunications industry and was one of the first socialist members of the Trilateral Commission. Solana studied at the Nuestra Señora del Pilar School, an exclusive Catholic Marianist secondary school, before going to Complutense University (UCM). There as a student in 1963 he suffered sanctions imposed by the authorities for having organised an opposition forum at the so-called Week of University Renovation. In 1964 he clandestinely joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), which had been illegal under Franco since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. In the same year he graduated and then spent a year furthering his studies at Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and in the United Kingdom. In 1965 he went to the United States, where he spent six years studying at various universities on a Fulbright Scholarship.