José Ribeiro e Castro

José Duarte de Almeida Ribeiro e Castro (born December 24, 1953 in Lisbon ) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician of the right-wing conservative CDS-PP . He headed the party from April 2005 to April 2007.

Life

education

José Ribeiro e Castro was born in Lisbon, his family comes from both Odemira in the Alentejo and the Portuguese Atlantic island of Madeira. First he studied law at the University of Lisbon , graduating in 1975 with the usual licenciatura . He then worked as a legal advisor and as a lawyer. Since 1999 he has been a member of the Association of Portuguese Lawyers ( Ordem dos Advogados ).

Beginning of career at CDS

In July 1974 he joined the newly founded party Partido do Centro Democrático Social (today Centro Democrático e Social - Partido Popular), which at the time was Christian-democratic and centrist. During this time he also got to know the later party leaders such as Diogo Freitas do Amaral and Adelino Amaro da Costa . In August of the same year he and other young members of the CDS founded a new youth organization of the party, the Juventude Centrista (JC, "Centrist Youth"). He headed the youth organization until the first CDS Congress in 1976. At the party congress, the party delegates elected him to the CDS National Commission, and later also to the party secretariat. During this time he worked, among other things, as a party spokesman.

Later Ribeiro e Castro worked in party - affiliated organizations, in 1979 he founded the Federação dos Trabalhadores Democrata-Cristãos (FTDC, "Association of Christian Democratic Workers") and the Confederação Nacional das Organizações de Família (CNAF, "National Federation of Family Organizations "). Also in 1979 he held the position of General Secretary of the CDS-affiliated Instituto Democracia e Liberdade (IDL, today Instituto Amaro da Costa ); from 1983 to 1985 he was Secretary General of the Instituto Fontes Pereira de Melo (IFPM).

State Secretary in the AD cabinets

At the age of 22, in the first regular parliamentary elections in 1976, he was elected to the Portuguese parliament for the first time in the district of Braga . He was also re-elected in the next elections (1979, 1980), this time on the electoral lists of the Aliança Democrática (AD), the electoral alliance made up of PSD, CDS and PPM, and once in the Aveiro district and once in the Lisbon district. Since the AD emerged victorious from the elections, Ribeiro e Castro also took over an office in government. First in the Sá Carneiro cabinet as State Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Diogo Freitas do Amaral , then the same position in the third cabinet under Pinto Balsemão . As part of this, he was responsible, among other things, for the affairs of the Portuguese colony of Macau ( Gabinete de Macau ).

From 1982 to 1985 was represented for the first time in a municipal meeting, initially in the municipal council of Odemira in the Alentejo . He repeated this in 2001 in Sintra, where he was also mayor of the Lisbon suburb of Sintra from 2002 to 2006 as part of this mandate.

In 1985 and 1986 respectively, he led the election campaign of Diogo Freitas do Amaral for the presidential election, the campaign carried the slogan P'rá Frente Portugal ("Forward, Portugal"). In the runoff election, however, PS candidate Mário Soares clearly won the election with 50.7 percent.

From 1986 to 1991, in the second cabinet under Prime Minister Cavaco Silva , he advised Education Minister Roberto Carneiro . As part of this, he advised Carneiro on the drafting of the first fundamental sporting right in Portugal (Direito-Lei No. 1/90). Ribeiro e Castro was also intensively involved in other questions of sports law. He also worked as a consultant from 1984 to 1985 at the Instituto Nacional de Administração ("National Administrative Institute "), from 1988 to 1990 in the Social Action Council of the Ministry of Social Affairs, from 1993 to 1994 in the anti-drug project Projecto Vida . In 1991, as a lawyer, he advised the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

Change to the media area

In addition to his political and party career, he was also active in the Portuguese media landscape. He was a member of the board of directors of the daily newspaper O Primeiro de Janeiro (1984–86), a member of the publishing council of the magazine Sábado (1988–89), a member of the finance council of the state television RTP (1988–1991) and a member of the opinion council of the RTP (2004–2005 ). In 1991 he also took the initiative to found the new national television station TVI , a television station with a "Christian spirit". As part of the development of the television station, he was a member of the board of directors (1991–92), coordinator of the legal area (1992–94), information director (1994–95), advisor to the artistic director (1996) and board member (1997–98).

Return to politics

In March 1998, at the CDS party conference in Braga, he returned to the political stage and was elected to the Political Commission and the party's executive committee. The party chairman at the time was Paulo Portas . In October 1999 he ran again for the Portuguese parliament, again in the electoral district of Braga.

In the Portuguese Parliament, however, he remained only a short time since he moved shortly thereafter to the European Parliament, where he was a member of the first group Union for a Europe of Nations . He was re-elected in the 2004 European elections , but moved to the Group of the European People's Party - European Democrats .

In the European Parliament, Ribeiro e Castro held various positions from the start; he held the deputy chairmanship of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (1991–2001), and since 2004 he has been Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Family and Children's Rights. From 1999 to 2004 he was also a member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs . Since 2004 he has been a member of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Development . Ribeiro e Castro also founded the parliamentary friendship group Europe-Macau and was vice-chairman of the European Parliament's Friends of India interest group . In 2004 he observed the parliamentary elections in Mozambique and Ukraine on behalf of the European Union, and was also the press spokesman for human rights for the European People's Party.

Short return to Portugal

After the Portuguese parliamentary elections in 2005, in which the CDS-PP had to accept high voting losses and Paulo Portas resigned as chairman of the CDS-PP, Ribeiro e Castro ran for the XX. Party congress in April 2005 in Lisbon for the party chairmanship. The majority of the delegates voted for him as there were no competing candidates. The re-election at the XXI. He also won the Congress in Batalha the following year. At the party congress in April 2007, the former party chairman Paulo Portas returned to the political arena and ran for chairmanship as did Ribeiro e Castro. Since, in retrospect, Ribeiro e Castro could not unite the two wings of the party - the right-wing conservative and the liberal - and also failed to sharpen the party's profile, the CDS-PP delegates voted for Portas with a clear majority of 74.6 percent. Since the Congress, Ribeiro e Castro has withdrawn from Portuguese politics and has since concentrated on his activities in Brussels.

José Ribeiro e Castro is married and has four children.

Web links

• Homepage of Ribeiro e Castro
• Entry for José Ribeiro e Castro in the database of Members of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ribeiro e Castro eleito presidente do CDS-PP  ( 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.   , [Ribeiro e Castro elected as chairman of the CDS-PP], Público , April 24, 2005
2. ↑ Ribeiro e Castro garante que o CDS-PP está unido  ( 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.   , [Ribeiro e Castro guarantees that the CDS-PP is united], Público , 7 May 2006
3. ↑ Margarida Gomes and Filomena Fontes: Paulo Portas arranca vitória clara sobre Ribeiro e Castro nas directas do CDS  ( 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.   , [Paulo Portas wins clear victory over Ribeiro e Castro in CDS direct elections], Público , April 22, 2007