Union 2007–2013. From 2007 until leaving the Parliament in 2009, he served as chairman of the Committee on Development. In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the Parliament's delegation to the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. Step back from the political front Borrell was nominated president of the European University Institute on 12 December 2008, and assumed this position in January 2010. In 2012, he was forced to resign after failing to disclose a financial relationship with Abengoa, due to being paid €300,000 yearly as board member for the company. In 2012, the University of Lleida appointed Borrell to a professorship of competition and regional development sponsored by energy company Repsol. He also held the Jean Monnet Chair at the Institute of International Studies at Complutense University of Madrid. Borrell collaborated along other prominent PSOE figures such as Cristina Narbona, José Félix Tezanos and Manuel Escudero in the making of Somos socialistas. Por una nueva socialdemocracia ("We are socialists. For a new social-democracy"), a manifesto in support of Pedro Sánchez's successful bid to the leadership of the PSOE in the May 2017 PSOE primary election prior to the 39th Federal Congress of the party. He also stood out as one of the most outspoken opponents of Catalan secessionism. Borrell co-authored Las cuentas y los cuentos de la independencia ("The calculations and tales behind independence"), a 2015 essay that vowed to dismantle the economic arguments laid out by the pro-independence movement. He also took a leading role in a mass rally defending the unity of Spain held in Barcelona on 8 October 2017, in which Borrell gave an impassionated speech demanding "not to bring up more frontiers" while displaying a European Union flag that he called "our estelada" (starred flag), bringing him back to the media first line. He also took part on a second mass rally on 29 October 2017 under the slogan "We are all Catalonia". Foreign Minister, 2018–2019 Following the 2018 successful motion of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy and subsequent investiture of Pedro Sánchez as new prime minister, Borrell was announced on 5 June as Sánchez's choice for the post of foreign minister in his new government. 22 years after the end of his last tenure as member of the Government of Spain, Borrell assumed the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation on 7 June along the rest of the new cabinet