Carlos Moedas

Carlos Moedas (2016)

Carlos Manuel Félix Moedas (born August 10, 1970 in Beja ) is a Portuguese civil engineer and economist as well as a politician of the Portuguese Partido Social Democrata (PSD). He served as State Secretary in the Passos Coelho cabinet and was EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation in the Juncker Commission from November 1, 2014 to November 30, 2019 .

biography

Youth & Studies

Carlos Moedas is the youngest child of journalist and communist José Moedas and an educator. He spent his childhood and youth in Beja in the Alentejo . After leaving school, he went to Lisbon at the age of 18 and studied civil engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, but finished his last year of studies in 1993 as an Erasmus student at the École des Ponts ParisTech in Paris .

Professional career

He started his professional life at the Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux group in France and worked there until 1998. During that time he also met his wife Celine Abdecassis. They went to the USA together in 1998 . Carlos Moedas graduated from Harvard Business School and obtained an MBA in 2000 while his wife was working in New York City .

Moedas then returned to Europe, where he initially got a job in London at Goldman Sachs in the field of mergers and acquisitions , and later worked at Deutsche Bank to help set up Eurohypo Investment Bank . After ten years abroad, Moedas returned to his Portuguese homeland and worked for Aguirre Newman , a real estate investment advisor, as managing director. Four years later he started his own capital investment company Crimson Investment Management .

Political career

After the parliamentary elections in Portugal in 2011, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho accepted him into the government as his state secretary, where he quickly became one of the most important representatives of the Portuguese government in talks with the delegation of the so-called “ Troika ”. This consisted of the European Commission , the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund and negotiated the Portuguese rescue program , which ended in May 2014.

On August 1, 2014, Carlos Moedas was proposed by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho as a representative of Portugal to the Juncker Commission of the European Commission and appointed as EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation on September 10, 2014.

The first photo of a black hole - Event Horizon Telescope image of the supermassive black hole in the center of Messier 87 , the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

During the unveiling of the groundbreaking first recording of a black hole on April 10, 2019, Moedas commented: "This is a picture that a single man dreamed of 100 years ago - Albert Einstein," said this recording was a real milestone in astronomy and a breakthrough for all of humanity.

Private life

Moedas is Catholic and has been married to the French Céline Abecassis since 2000 ; she is a lecturer at the Catholic University in Lisbon. They have three children together.

Awards

• Grand Officer of the Order of the Infante Dom Henrique

Web links

Commons : Carlos Moedas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Portrait of Carlos Moedas at the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies , August 2014
• A rápida ascensão de Carlos Moeda's profile on Visão Online, August 1, 2014 (Portuguese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.portugal.gov.pt/en/the-ministries/secretary-of-state-to-the-prime-minister/know-the-team/secretaries-of-state/carlos-moedas.aspx
2. ↑ Biography in the Center for European Studies  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/portugal-nominates-moedas-for-commission/
5. ↑ http://ec.europa.eu/about/juncker-commission/commissioners-designate/index_en.htm
6. ↑ https://www.scinexx.de/news/kosmos/das-erste-foto-eines-schwarzen-lochs/
7. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated August 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.