Maria Manuel Leitão Marques

Maria Manuel de Lemos Leitão Marques ComIP (born August 23, 1952 in Quelimane , Portuguese East Africa ) is a Portuguese university professor, politician and publicist. Since 2003 she has been a professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra and is also active in research at the Center of Social Sciences at the same university . From 2015 to 2019 she was Minister for the Presidency and Modernization of Administration in the XXI Governo Constitucional de Portugal .

She was State Secretary in the same ministry in the XVII Governo Constitucional de Portugal and XVIII Governo Constitucional de Portugal .

life and career

Maria Manuel Leitão Marques was born in Quelimane, in the colony of Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique ), as one of three children of a Portuguese doctor. She was brought up relatively openly and with equal rights. Her father described her as an opponent of the then Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar . The Portuguese school she attended in Quelimane describes her as international. Among her classmates there were many Pakistani and children from Indian families, for example from Goa and other parts of the former colony of Portuguese India . For practical reasons, however, there was hardly any contact with the black population, such as the children of servants in their environment.

According to her statement, many privileged families of civil servants, business people and doctors settled in the former colony of Portuguese East Africa. Since the Portuguese colonies were considered less conservative and were less affected by sanctions against the Salazar dictatorship, Maria Manuel Leitão Marques describes growing up in rural Quelimane as being relatively liberal compared to the conservative Portugal of the Estado Novo . The family was able to travel again and again. She also spent parts of her youth with her grandparents near Aveiro, Portugal. After the Indian invasion of Goa, all Indian classmates were interned in camps with their families in Mozambique, still in Portugal. Experiences that shaped her according to her own statement.

She went to Portugal with her siblings to study. In 1975 she completed a law degree there at the University of Coimbra with above-average success. She was one of the first female graduates in her country in this subject. During her studies she was the only woman who worked on the cultural magazine Vértice . It was only in 1990 that she received her doctorate in economics from the same university. After projects in the social sciences and economics, she found more freedom here to implement her ideas. She has had her own chair since 2003.

Also in 1975 the Carnation Revolution took place in Portugal against the nationalist dictatorship of the Estado Novo. She became an active member of the socialist resistance movement Movimento de Esquerda Socialista (MES), from whose overly extreme ideals she turned away again after the Carnation Revolution, and later joined the more moderate social democratic party Partido Socialista .

In the Sócrates I Cabinet (2005–2009) and Sócrates II Cabinet (2009–2011), she was State Secretary responsible for the modernization of the administration. Sometimes as Senhora Simplex called, developed and coordinated them even before the financial crisis on its own initiative, the modernization program SIMPLEX SIMPLEX is a program to combat bureaucracy, to modernize public administration, to facilitate the life of people and companies ( combater a burocracia, modernizar a administração pública, facilitar a vida das pessoas e dar às empresas ). The sometimes highly bureaucratic administration saw them as one of the main brakes on the Portuguese economy. Buzzwords such as computerization for administrations and small and medium-sized companies or corresponding modernized identity cards were further core topics of her work.

In addition, Maria Manuel Leitão Marques has been Vice-President of the Association internationale de droit économique since 1993 . Between 2013 and 2015 she was also non-executive managing director of Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos - Foundation . This is an independent foundation that was established in 2009 and aims to promote studies and analyzes of Portuguese reality.

Maria Marques was Minister for the Presidency and Administration Modernization of the Portuguese Government in the Costa I Cabinet from November 26, 2015 to February 18, 2019 .

Private

Maria Manuel Leitão Marques is married to Vital Moreira , who is considered one of the fathers of the Portuguese constitution. The marriage remained childless. Vital Moreira was her former lecturer, so the couple could not officially move in together until 1987.

Honors

• Ordem da Instrução Pública of Portugal, awarded by President Jorge Sampaio (March 11, 2000)
• Glubenkian Prize for Social Sciences, awarded by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (1997)

Web links

• List of publications and books in Portuguese
• Entry on Maria Manuel Leitão Marques in the database of Members of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Maria Manuel Leitao Marques ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Dizer que a Maria Manuel é a mulher do Vital é dizer muito pouco dela ( Memento from January 17, 2017 on WebCite ), interview in Público (Portuguese)
3. ↑ ^{a b} Maria Manuel Leitão Marques - Investigadores do Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)
4. ↑ Maria Manuel Leitão Marques ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)
5. ↑ SIMPLEX (Portuguese)
6. ↑ Ministra da Presidência: Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, a senhora "Simplex" ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)
7. ↑ Administration ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)
8. ↑ ^{a b} Biografia - Maria Manuel Leitão Marques ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)
9. ↑ Decreto do Presidente da República n.º 129-C / 2015 ( Memento of January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) of November 26, 2015 (Portuguese)
10. ↑ Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, a catedrática que criou o Simplex, chega a ministra (Portuguese) ( Memento from January 12, 2017 on WebCite )
11. ↑ Cidadãos Nacionais Agraciados com Ordens Portuguesas - Página Oficial das Ordens Honoríficas Portuguesas ( Memento of January 12, 2017 on WebCite ) (Portuguese)