Federico Trillo

Federico Trillo     (politician, diplomat)
Born	23 May 1952 Cartagena (Spain), Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Alma mater	University of Salamanca, Complutense University of Madrid
Parents	• Federico Trillo-Figueroa Vázquez • Eloísa Martínez-Conde Muñoz
Member of	Opus Dei
Party	Partido Popular
Spanish diplomat and politician, Opus Dei.  Spain/Minister/Defence  In office 2000 - 2004  Spain/President of the Congress of Deputies In office 1996 - 2000  Ambassador of Spain to the United Kingdom In office 2012 - 2011  Spain/Member of the Congress of Deputies In office 1989 - 2012

Federico Trillo-Figueroa Martínez-Conde is a former Spanish Politician and Opus Dei member who was Minister of Defense and Ambassador of Spain to the United Kingdom. He attended the 1995 Bilderberg meeting.

Background

Federico was born on 23 May 1952 in Cartagena, Murcia. He is the son of Federico Trillo-Figueroa Vázquez and Eloísa Martínez-Conde Muñoz. Federico, a Galician, was a major figure in the Francoist government. Originally a military lawyer, he later become a member of the Cortes Españolas before becoming the mayor of Cartagena in the 1960s and then also assumed the post of civil governor in 1974. He died in 2002, aged 82.

Education

Trillo graduated with a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Salamanca and a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid.

He is a supernumerary in Opus Dei.

Military career

Trillo entered into the Navy's Legal Corps as first of his class in 1974 where he was posted in the naval prosecutor's office of the Maritime Zone of the Mediterranean, later he was posted in the Directorship of Military Naval Construction. He is rumoured to have collected antiques retrieved by naval divers.

In 1979, he passed the examination for Counsel of the Council of State. During his time there, he worked at the Economy and Finance, Interior Territory, and Foreign Affairs sections, contributing to the drafting of an opinion on Spain's entrance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) while working in the latter. He retired from the navy as a Judge-Advocate Mayor in 1989 in order to enter politics.

Political career

In 1983 he entered the legal staff of the Alianza Popular (People's Alliance), then headed by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, where he actively participated in the restructuring of the party, refashioning it as the People's Party. He has been a member of the national executive since 1986.

Trillo has been elected deputy for the province of Alicante since 1989. From 1989 and 1996, he was vice-president of the Congress of Deputies. On 27 March 1996 he was elected president of the Congress of Deputies, a position he maintained until the end of the sixth legislature in 2000. On 27 April 2000 Prime Minister José María Aznar named him Minister of Defense for Aznar's second government.

In July 2002, he ordered an attack on Perejil Island, a Spanish enclave off Morocco, which had been occupied for days by Moroccan soldiers.

Iraq war

While the 2003 invasion of Iraq was looming, where Spain was part of the "Coalition of the Willing", Minister of Defense Trillo explained on February 9, 2003 at the Munich Security Conference that "it is not the UN that must demonstrate that it has more inspection capacity, it is Iraq that must prove that it respects the resolutions", affirming that "the problem is Saddam Hussein". According to him, "increasing the number of inspectors would not bring anything".

At the end of the meeting of the Spanish Council of Ministers on March 7, Trillo presented plans developed by his ministry for a possible participation in the American-British offensive in Iraq. These include the deployment in the Persian Gulf of the aircraft carrier Príncipe de Asturias and six F/A-18 fighter jets in Turkey, as part of NATO, but no participation in ground combat. On March 18, José María Aznar announces to the deputies that the Spanish contingent will consist of 900 men and will carry out support missions, by means of an amphibious assault ship, an escort frigate and an oil tanker. In addition, six F/A-18s will be deployed in Turkey in order to defend its border from possible Iraqi attacks.

Shoddy identification

The Ukrainian-Mediterranean Airlines Flight 4230 in Turkey on 26 May 2003, in which 62 Spanish soldiers died while returning from Afghanistan marked the end of his tenure as the Minister of Defense. Three of his subordinates were sent to prison for falsifying the identification of 30 of the bodies. A judge found no grounds to implicate Trillo, and Trillo repeatedly refused to accept political or criminal responsibility.

Changes to intelligence agencies

During his appearance before the Congressional Defense Committee on June 6, 2000, Trillo announced his intention to thoroughly reform the Higher Center for Defense Information (CESID), by passing a new law on parliamentary and judicial control of the secret agencies and appointing a civilian to replace the then director, General Javier Calderón. He expressed his desire to reach a consensus on this transformation, a wish taken at its word by the Socialist parliamentary group, which invites Trillo to "negotiate seriously".

On June 29, the Council of Ministers appoints the diplomat Jorge Dezcallar director of CESID. Less than four months later, Trillo that he had reached an agreement with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party on the main lines of the changes, while the preliminary draft laws for the creation of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI). In accordance with the new regulations, the CNI will be subject to the authority of the Ministry of Defense, will have annual objectives set out in the intelligence directive, developed by the government and kept secret, and will have to have the authorization of a judge of the Supreme Court to carry out wiretaps or searches.

Bárcenas corruption scandal

Federico Trillo appears in the Bárcenas corruption scandal. Following revelations that Luis Bárcenas, who served as party treasurer and senator, held 48 million euros in Swiss bank accounts, extracts of handwritten accounts, the so-called "Bárcenas papers" (los papeles de Bárcenas) were published in the press. Those accounts allegedly indicate that the PP kept, for many years, a parallel bookkeeping system to record undeclared and illegal cash donations, and used them to pay bonuses to senior members of the party'. The documents cover the period from 1990 to 2009.

Irene Calais wrote that

Many of us have wondered why this man, lacking in political charisma, finesse, gestural subtlety and any other attibutes, at the same time ambitious who lamented that at his forties he had not yet managed to become a minister like Luis Gámir and have 40 million pesetas of the then, year 1992, in the bank account, continued to play a political role. The answer is very simple and now it is unraveling with the Bárcenas case: Federico was the man who knew too much, the man of the system who had to be maintained in exchange for his silence, the telltale of judges, prosecutors, magistrates and dodgy deals outside of all legality. Federico had to be given whatever he asked for and he knew that the act of nepotism of placing his two beloved daughters as lawyers of Parliament while he held the position of president, that does not give me faith in transparency.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1995	8 June 1995	11 June 1995	Greece Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel Vouliagmeni	The 43rd Bilderberg. Held at the Burgenstock Hotel in Burgenstock, Switzerland.

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