Oreja was born on 13 February 1935 in Madrid, his father was
Marcelino Oreja Elósegui. In May 1973 he and a number of Madrid-based individuals founded the , a group of intellectuals, politicians and journalists, some of them coming from the
Franco regime and others from the democratic and monarchist opposition to the dictatorship. They - by the prospect of Franco's death - advocated a democratic solution to the dictatorial regime and had influence in different sectors linked to the system, and where active during the period of the
Spanish Transition between 1973 and 1976. Oreja came up with the name after the Roman historian
Tacitus, meaning that due to
government censorship not everything could be said. The had its origins in a meeting of the Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas’ (
Catholic National Association of Propagandists) and group's early influence was largely determined by its access to the Catholic press. The Spanish chief of state no more had the right to nominate Roman Catholic bishops, in exchange the Vatican dropped its right of "ecclesiastical forum". Two months later Oreja signed the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights on behalf of Spain. On 24 November 1977, in Strasbourg, Oreja signed Spain's accession to the
Council of Europe, with the
European Convention on Human Rights entering into force in Spain on 4 October 1979. He was
Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 1984 to 1989. He was elected to the
European Parliament in 1989. His membership ended on 28 June 1993. In 1994 Oreja was appointed
European Commissioner for Transport and Energy and then
European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy. At the end of his mandate, Oreja retired from political life, returning to Spain. He continued to be active in many fields, being appointed Head of the Institute for European Studies at the CEU San Pablo University Foundation, Vice-chair of the BBV Foundation (1996) and Doctor Honoris Causa at
Zaragoza and
Seville Universities (1996). ==Personal life==