Mr Rubial was chairman of the PSOE until his death in 1999

RAMÓN RUBIAL, PART OF THE SPANISH PHILATELY ‘PERSONALITIES’ SERIES

• The stamp features an image of Mr Rubial in his latter years
• 1,000,000 of the stamps will be issued, with a value of €0.57

Madrid, 23 October 2006. The chairman of the National Mint and Stamp Factory, Sixto Heredia, the chairman of CORREOS, José Damián Santiago, and the chairman of the Ramon Rubial Foundation, Eduardo Gómez Basterra, presented the stamp at 19:30 today, in the Auditorium of the National Mint and Stamp Factory Museum. The stamp celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ramon Rubial, and is part of the themed series on Personalities. Lentxu Rubial, the daughter of this historic figure from the socialist party, also attended the presentation.

A socialist benchmark

Mr Rubial, who was the chairman of the PSOE, the Spanish Socialist Party, until his death, was born on 28 October 1906 in Erandio (Vizcaya). He was a metalworker who began his apprenticeship at the age of 14 in the Babio e Iribarren workshop in Bilbao. He immediately joined the UGT's Vizcaya Metalworkers Union and two years later, at 16 (1922), he joined the Young Socialists. He was committed to the objective of improving the conditions of the working class, and took an active part in the defence of the Republic during the civil war. As a result of this he spent 20 years in prison.

With the transition to democracy, in 1976 he was elected chairman of the PSOE and in 1977 as a senator for Vizcaya. In February 1978 he was elected as the first Lehendakari (president of the regional government of the Basque country) of the democratic age. In 1990, together with Carmen García Bloise, he was instrumental in founding the Fundación Españoles en el Mundo (Foundation of Spaniards in the World), which aimed to “carry out help programmes for all Spaniards in any part of the world; to enable Spaniards who live, or have lived, outside Spain to benefit from solidarity with other Spaniards and receive all necessary assistance; to maintain the Spanish presence in the world, through the Spaniards who live abroad, promoting all types of relationships between Spain and the other countries of the world; to give and receive information about cultural, political, economic and social life and, in short, to promote all initiatives that lead to the full integration of Spaniards in the countries in which they live, as well as in Spain”.

Ramón Rubial died in May 1999 at the age of 93, still active as a senator and chairman of the PSOE.

TECHNICAL DATA:

- Date of issue: 27 October 2006

- Printing process: Chalcography

- Paper: Phosphorescent, gummed, matt, chalk coated paper

- Perforated: 13 3/4

- Stamp format: 28.8 x 40.9 mm. (vertical)

- Number of stamps on a sheet: 50

- Postal value: €0.57

- Print run: 1,000,000