Overview
- The Valencia City Council held an extraordinary session to formalize the mourning period, suspend municipal events, and fly flags at half‑mast.
- His death at 80 has been confirmed, and he was cremated in a private ceremony on Wednesday, according to El País.
- As mayor from 1979 to 1989, he drove the conversion of the old Turia riverbed into the Jardín del Turia and promoted the Palau de la Música and the city’s General Urban Plan.
- Political leaders across parties issued tributes, with Mayor María José Catalá praising his long‑term vision and figures like Ximo Puig and Diana Morant highlighting his role in Valencia’s early democratic era.
- Beyond Valencia, he served in 1996 as the European Union’s administrator in Mostar after the Bosnian war and later held posts in national and Mediterranean institutions.