Former EU Commission VP, Spain's Palacio dies

MADRID, Dec 14 (Reuters) Former European Commission vice president and Spanish government minister Loyola de Palacio has died of lung cancer at the age of 56, conservative Popular Party officials said today.

De Palacio died in a Madrid hospital on Wednesday after returning to Spain from Houston, where she was receiving treatment for cancer detected during the summer.

A lawyer by profession, she was Spain's agriculture minister from 1996-99 in the centre-right government of former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

She then became vice president of the European Commission in charge of relations with the European Parliament as well as transport and energy until 2004.

The European Parliament held a minute's silence during its session in Strasbourg today.

''I feel a personal feeling of loss,'' said European Parliament President Josep Borrell, also a Spaniard.

De Palacio's sister, Ana, a former Spanish foreign minister and now vice president of the World Bank, overcame breast cancer in the 1990s.

REUTERS BDP HT1742