José Manuel Barroso

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José Manuel Barroso (2009)
Signature of José Manuel Barroso

To listen to José Manuel Durão Barroso [ ʒuˈzɛ mɐˈnu̯ɛl duˈɾɐ̃u̯ bɐˈʁozu ] ? / i (born March 23, 1956 in Lisbon ) is a Portuguese business consultant and former politician . From 2002 to 2004 he was Prime Minister of Portugal. From 2004 to 2014 Barroso was President of the European Commission for two terms (see Commission Barroso I and II ). Audio file / audio sample

Life

José Manuel Barroso studied law and political science in Lisbon , Florence and New York and graduated in economics and social science from the University of Geneva (Institut européen de l'Université de Genève). As an assistant professor , he specialized in international politics at the University of Lisbon and continued his academic career in Geneva and at the Political Sciences Department of Georgetown University in Washington DC , where he carried out research for his doctorate ( PhD ). On his return to Lisbon, he became in 1980 Director of the departamento of International Relations of the University of Lusíada in Porto .

In addition to his native Portuguese , Barroso is also fluent in Spanish and French , which helped him achieve the post of Commission President with the support of France. Barroso belongs to the Roman Catholic denomination. Shortly after taking office, he took a course to learn a little German . At the award ceremony for the Future Prize of the Bonn Initiative Forum Zukunft on August 29, 2007, Barroso gave his speech in German. Barroso is married to the literary scholar Margarida Sousa Uva and has three sons.

In 2015 Barroso took part in the 63rd Bilderberg Conference in Telfs- Buchen in Austria .

On July 8, 2016, it was announced that Barroso would work for the US investment bank Goldman Sachs as a consultant and "President without portfolio".

Political career in Portugal

Barroso's political career began as a student, before the April 25, 1974 Carnation Revolution . He was one of the party leaders of the PCTP-MRPP , a Maoist party. He soon turned away and joined the Partido Social Democrata (PSD) in December 1980 , of which he is still a member today. Despite its name, it is a conservative party that belongs to the Group of the European People's Party in the European Parliament .

In his political career, before his time as Prime Minister, Barroso held the following offices:

In 1990, as Secretary of State, he was the driving force behind the Bicesse Agreement, which led to a temporary ceasefire in the Angolan civil war between the MPLA and UNITA by Jonas Savimbi . Durão Barroso also supported East Timor's independence from Indonesia .

After the PSD lost the election in 1995, his attempt to become party leader of the PSD failed . After a fierce power struggle within the party, he only succeeded in doing this in 1999. His party won the 2002 parliamentary election just ahead of the socialists; in the European elections in 2004, after Barroso's term in office, the strength ratio was reversed and the ruling PSD lost significant votes in 2005 .

From April 6, 2002 to July 12, 2004, Barroso was Prime Minister of Portugal . During his tenure , he took steps that met resistance from the Portuguese population, such as supporting the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, privatizing state-owned companies, and cutting public spending. Barroso justified his policy with the poor economic situation and the budget deficit left by the previous PS government . He emphasized compliance with the Euro Stability Pact as a goal . Barroso succeeded in doing this in his two years in office - albeit only nominally: Barroso had state holdings sold, tapped into the pension fund of the state-owned postal company and had future tax payments sold on the stock exchange.

During Barroso's tenure, there were several cabinet reshuffles: In April 2003, Luís Valente de Oliveira resigned because of health problems and Isaltino Morais because of a financial affair involving Swiss accounts.

  • The two ministers of his government, António Martins da Cruz and Pedro Lynce, both resigned in October 2003 because of a corruption affair.
  • The last cabinet reshuffle in May 2004 concerned the post of Environment Minister, Amílcar Theias opposed Barroso regarding a position on the board of the state water supplier Águas de Portugal and had to resign under pressure from the Prime Minister.

Barroso's main field of activity during his career in Portugal was foreign policy , where he received praise from the opposition at times. This interest was evident early on and through almost the entire résumé. During his time as Prime Minister of Portugal, he advocated deepening relations between the EU Commission and the US government .

Political career in Europe

European Commission headquarters in Brussels (Berlaymont building).

At the age of 48, the conservative was nominated by the European Council as a candidate for the office of EU Commission President on June 29, 2004 and confirmed by the European Parliament on July 22, 2004, with 413 members voting for him, 251 against and 44 with abstention and 24 MPs did not vote. Before that, in mid-June, first Germany and France failed with their proposal by the liberal Prime Minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt and then conservative heads of government with their proposal by the British Chris Patten .

The commission he first presented did not foreseeably meet with insufficient support in the European Parliament. The focus of the rejection of the Greens, Social Democrats and the left was among others the planned commissioner Rocco Buttiglione because of his statements about homosexuality and Ingrīda Ūdre, who was involved in a corruption affair at the time . The planned vote on the Commission was then postponed to November. Two Commissioners were replaced and Barroso reassigned a Commissioner-designate to a new portfolio. The EU Commission Barroso was confirmed in this composition on November 18, 2004 by the European Parliament. 449 people voted for him, 149 MPs voted against him and 82 MPs abstained.

On July 9, 2009, Barroso was officially nominated for a second term as Commission President. While the heads of state and government of all 27 EU member states were in favor of re-election, the Social Democrats, Socialists and Greens in the European Parliament had previously announced that they would not vote for Barroso. Among other things, they criticized Barroso's trade policy and the fact that the policy of deregulation he supported and his slow response had exacerbated the financial crisis in Europe. Barroso had formed a group to oversee the financial markets, but according to the criticism it was too little independent or too closely interwoven with the financial lobby.

In view of the criticism of Barroso, the European Parliament's decision on the candidacy was postponed to September 2009. On September 16, 2009, Barroso was elected by the European Parliament for a second term of five years. For Barroso, 382 MPs and 219 representatives voted against him. The number of abstentions was 117. His term of office ended on October 31, 2014.

Since then, his term of office has been shaped by the euro crisis . As part of this, the European Council adopted the ' euro rescue package ' in May 2010 and signed the European Stabilization Mechanism in July 2011 , which was founded in September 2012.

In addition, some EU organs are looking for a new division of roles: since December 1, 2009 there is a permanent President of the European Council (currently Charles Michel ) and a High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (currently Josep Borrell ); his office is also Vice-President of the European Commission , Chairperson of the Council for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Representative of the European Council .

On June 17, 2013 announced Barroso together with US President Barack Obama , European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and UK Prime Minister David Cameron at a press conference at the sidelines of a meeting of the G8 , the initiation of negotiations between the EU and US for Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TTIP ) as "a powerful demonstration of the intention to create a free, open and rule-based world".

In the summer of 2016, Barroso was hired by Goldman Sachs to act as an advisor on Brexit to assert the interests of the UK against the EU. In connection with this, he was downgraded to the EU lobbyist who is no longer received with protocol honors. The then EU Parliament President Martin Schulz sharply criticized the change.

honors and awards

literature

Web links

Commons : José Manuel Barroso  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: Ex-EU Commission Head: Barroso hires Goldman Sachs. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. Retrieved July 8, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Jan Fleischhauer: Protest note from the number juggler. In: Spiegel Online , August 15, 2011.
  3. ^ Ernst Christian Schütt: Chronicle 2004 , Wissen Media Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-577-14104-2 , p. 179
  4. ↑ a b Barroso officially nominated for a new term. In: Focus , July 9, 2009.
  5. ↑ Barroso's chances of being re-elected soon. In: Spiegel Online , July 1, 2009.
  6. ^ ARD summary of The Brussels Business , documentary Belgium / Austria 2011
  7. ↑ EU Parliament votes for Barroso's second term. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 16, 2009.
  8. ^ Presidents Barroso and Obama announce launch of TTIP negotiations. (htm) ec.europa.eu, June 17, 2013, accessed on March 22, 2014 .
  9. ↑ WeltN24 / Ulrich Exner: "EU officials find Barroso's job change" morally reprehensible "" Welt.de of September 22, 2016
  10. ↑ nzz.ch of September 12, 2016 / Niklaus Nuspliger: Barroso falls out of favor in Brussels
  11. ↑ FAZ.net September 27, 2016: Schulz calls Barroso's move unacceptable
  12. ^ Honorary Knights and Dames at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
  13. ↑ Honorary doctorate for José Manuel Barroso
  14. ↑ Le Dies academicus sous le signe des droits humains. In: University of Geneva , October 8, 2010 (French).
  15. ↑ https://www.orderofmalta.int/de/2010/05/23/collane-merito-militensi-jose-manuel-barroso/
  16. ↑ zakon3.rada.gov.ua
predecessor Office successor
Antonio Guterres Prime Minister of Portugal
2002-2004 		Pedro Santana Lopes
personal data
SURNAME Barroso, José Manuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Durão Barroso, José Manuel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese business consultant and former politician, President of the European Commission
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon