Diogo Freitas do Amaral

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Diogo Freitas do Amaral (2005)

Listen to Diogo Pinto de Freitas do Amaral [ ˈdi̯oɣu ˈfɾɐi̯tɐʃ du ɐmɐˈɾal ] ? / i (born July 21, 1941 in Póvoa de Varzim , Portugal ; † October 3, 2019 in Cascais ) was a Portuguese lawyer and politician. He was a co-founder of the right-wing conservative party Centro Democrático e Social (CDS). Audio file / audio sample

Freitas do Amaral was a member of several Portuguese governments between 1980 and 2006 . Among other things, he was foreign minister, deputy prime minister and defense minister of Portugal, as well as his party's presidential candidate and party leader.

Youth and education

Diogo Freitas do Amaral was born on July 21, 1941 in Póvoa de Varzim , a town in the greater Porto area . He spent his childhood between Póvoa da Varzim, birthplace of his mother Maria Filomena de Campos Trocado, and Guimarães , birthplace of his father Duarte Pinto de Carvalho Freitas do Amaral. His two brothers died in childhood.

Freitas do Amaral completed his school education at the Liceu Pedro Nunes in Lisbon until 1959 . Amaral then began to study law at the University of Lisbon at the age of 18 , completing his degree in 1963 with a licenciatura .

Academic career

As a student of Marcelo Caetano , Amaral decided to pursue an academic career and specialize in administrative law. In 1964 he completed an additional course in the field of political-economic sciences, his thesis entitled A utilização do domínio público pelos particulares (in German roughly "Use of the public domain by individuals"). In 1967 he received his doctorate in the field of political and legal studies, his doctorate was entitled A execução das sentenças dos tribunais administrativos (in German roughly "enforcement of decisions of the administrative courts"). In 1970 he took up a chair at the Law Faculty of the University of Lisbon .

In 1977 Amaral started working with the Law Faculty of the Portuguese Catholic University . After he was one of the founders of the Law Faculty of the New University of Lisbon in 1998 , he left the University of Lisbon and devoted himself exclusively to teaching at the New University of Lisbon until 1999. On May 22, 2007, he taught his final course at the university entitled "Changes in Administrative Law Over the Last 50 Years". He then worked for several years at the Law Faculty of the Universidade Lusófona .

Freitas do Amaral is the author of the work Curso de Direito Administrativo (Degree in Administrative Law), which has appeared in several editions since 1986. Freitas do Amaral is one of the most important representatives of the administrative law of the so-called "Lisbon School", which formed a new generation of lawyers after the Carnation Revolution. This generation also includes Maria da Glória Garcia , Luís Fábrica , Vasco Pereira da Silva , Maria João Estorninho , Paulo Otero and Carla Amado Gomes .

Political career

Foundation of the CDS

Diogo Freitas do Amaral saw himself as a representative and defender of a “European Christian Democracy ” in Portugal and was one of the most important political figures in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution in 1974 . Together with other colleagues he founded the Centro Democrático e Social (abbreviated CDS, in German "Democratic and social center"). The members elected Freitas do Amaral as the party's first chairman, and he headed the party's Political Commission until 1982.

For the CDS, Freitas do Amaral was a member of the Constituent Assembly of Portugal after 1975. The CDS was the only party to vote against the adoption of the proposed constitution of 1976 due to its strong socialist components. From 1974 to 1975 was also a member of the State Council , from 1976 Member of the Portuguese Parliament until 1983 .

Foreign Minister and Defense Minister

In 1979, Freitas do Amaral and his CDS party formed the Aliança Democrática (AD, Democratic Alliance) together with the right-wing liberal PSD under Francisco Sá Carneiro and the conservative small party PPM under Gonçalo Ribeiro Teles . The electoral alliance won an absolute majority in the 1979 parliamentary elections for the first time in Portuguese history after 1974, and was even able to expand this in the early 1980 elections .

According to this result, Freitas do Amaral was from January to December 1980 as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister part of the 6th Portuguese government ( Sá Carneiro cabinet ). After the plane crash in Camarate , in which Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro died on December 4, 1980, Freitas do Amaral took over the post of Prime Minister of the same government. Under the leadership of Francisco Pinto Balsemão , who later succeeded Sá Carneiro as Prime Minister, he joined the government of Pinto Balsemão ( Pinto Balsemão I cabinet ) months later as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense from 1981 to 1983 . The 1982 constitutional revision, which the Portuguese socialists achieved through a compromise with Mário Soares , is considered to be one of the greatest political successes of the government under Pinto Balsemão. As part of the revision, Amaral was able to achieve his goal, which had already been proclaimed in the constituent assembly, of removing the strongly socialist components of the constitution.

From 1981 to 1983 Freitas Amaral was President of the European People's Party . In 1986, Freitas do Amaral went into the elections for the Portuguese president as a common candidate of the conservative political camp and a clear favorite . After clearly leading the PS candidate Mário Soares (25.43%) and the PCP and PRD supported Salgado Zenha (20.88%) in the first ballot with 46.31% of the votes cast , he lost in the Runoff ballot surprisingly with 48.82% of the votes cast against Mário Soares (51.18%).

Break with the CDS

In 1992, Freitas do Amaral broke with his CDS party due to the increasingly anti-European stance under new chairman Manuel Monteiro after the party had voted internally against the Maastricht Treaty. However, he remained a member of the European People's Party, which temporarily excluded his party from its association for the same reason. Between 1995 and 1996 he headed the General Assembly of the United Nations .

In 2003, together with Mário Soares, he strongly criticized the American war against Iraq and the position of the then Portuguese coalition government under Barroso , consisting of the PDS and CDS . During the 2005 election campaign, he wrote a highly regarded article in the magazine Visão , in which he called for an absolute majority of the socialists, which earned him severe criticism from the conservative camp.

For the first time in Portuguese history, the socialists won an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in spring 2005 . The new socialist prime minister, José Sócrates , asked him, surprisingly, to take over the post of foreign minister, which he accepted after a short period of reflection and joined the government as a non-party member. Shortly thereafter, the European People's Party decided to withdraw his membership until further notice. His former CDS party also criticized his stance. In June 2006 he resigned from the office of Foreign Minister for health reasons.

Private

On July 31, 1965, Diogo Freitas do Amaral married his wife Maria José Salgado Sarmento de Matos, who, among other things, achieved fame as a novelist in Portugal using the pseudonym Maria Roma . The couple had four children.

death

Diogo Freitas do Amaral died on October 3, 2019 at the age of 78 from complications from bone cancer and associated bleeding in the CUF hospital in the Lisbon suburb of Cascais . The Portuguese government then ordered a day of national mourning . The funeral service took place in the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém, and the burial took place as part of a state act on October 5, 2019 at the Cemitério da Guia in Cascais.

Honors

Diogo Freitas do Amaral has received numerous awards and honors, including:

Web links

Commons : Diogo Freitas do Amaral  - collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

  1. ^ Morreu Freitas do Amaral, fundador do CDS. Retrieved October 3, 2019 (Portuguese).
  2. ↑ a b c d Freitas do Amaral. Velório nos Jerónimos e funeral em Cascais. In: Público. October 3, 2019, accessed October 4, 2019 (Portuguese).
  3. ^ Nuno Ribeiro: Freitas do Amaral fundou um partido e morreu politicamente só. In: Público. October 3, 2019, accessed October 4, 2019 (Portuguese).
  4. ↑ Revisões constitucionais. Retrieved October 4, 2019 .
predecessor Office successor
Francisco Sá Carneiro Prime Minister of Portugal
1980–1981 		Francisco Pinto Balsemão
personal data
SURNAME Freitas do Amaral, Diogo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freitas do Amaral, Diogo Pinto de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese politician (CDS)
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Póvoa de Varzim , Portugal
DATE OF DEATH 3rd October 2019
Place of death Cascais