Emilio Attard Alonso

Who is Emilio Attard Alonso?

Emilio Attard Alonso was a Spanish politician.

Attard originally became politically active in his youth during the Second Spanish Republic. In this period he worked as a lawyer and a legal adviser to the Bank of Spain in Valencia. He also studied journalism in the early 1930s, writing numerous articles, and subsequently helped to found the Spanish Export Bank. By the 1960s he had become Deacon of the Spanish College of Lawyers.

Following the end of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. He then became founder and President of the Valencian People's Party and Vice-President of the federation of People's Parties. That party, not to be confused with the current grouping of the same name, joined with other parties to form the Union of the Democratic Centre in 1977. As a UCD member, at the 1977 General Election, he was elected to the Spanish Congress of Deputies representing Valencia Province and was re-elected in the subsequent election in 1979.

A distinguished lawyer, during the Spanish transition to democracy Attard was chosen as President of the parliamentary commission charged with editing the new Spanish constitution. Along with the other six members of the Constitutional Commission he was subsequently awarded the Grand Cross of Alonso X by the King Juan Carlos I Within the UCD, he served as Vice-President of the UCD parliamentary group in Congress as well as serving on the UCD national executive and the Valencian regional executive. He was also one of the Vice-Presidents of the Congress.