José Sócrates

This article is about the Portuguese politician. For further meanings, see Socrates (disambiguation) .

José Sócrates during a state visit to Brazil on August 9, 2006

José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa , [ ʒuzɛ sɔkɾɐtɨʃ kɐrvaʎu Pintu də sozɐ ] listen ^{? / i} , mostly just José Sócrates , (born September 6, 1957 in Vilar de Maçada ) is a politician of the social democratic party of Portugal Partido Socialista (PS). He was General Secretary of his party from September 2004 to July 2011. From March 12, 2005 to June 15, 2011 he was Prime Minister of his country. In the second half of 2007 he was Chairman of the European Council , the highest body in the EU . After the Wall Street crash in September 2008, he initiated the unpopular austerity policy in the wake of the euro crisis and brought three austerity packages through parliament. Mass protests escalated to general strikes directed against these austerity measures. When parliament refused his minority government to approve the fourth austerity package within a year in March 2011, he submitted his resignation on March 23, 2011 and remained in office until the new elections in early June.

Life

education

Sócrates was born in Porto on September 6, 1957 , but his birthplace was registered in Vilar de Maçada, Alijó, in the northeast of the country. He spent his childhood and youth in the city of Covilhã in the Centro region . After completing primary and secondary schooling, he went to the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra (ISEC) in 1975 , which was later integrated into the Coimbra Polytechnic Institute . There Sócrates studied civil engineering with a specialization in the sanitary sector with a degree from the New University of Lisbon .

Between 1987 and 1993 he attended the private Lusíada University in Lisbon , where he enrolled in law, but did not graduate. In 1994 he returned to ISEC as a well-known politician, where he wanted to complete his academic training with a CESE diploma. Instead, however, he was awarded a licenciatura from the Universidade Independente in civil engineering in 1996, which caused confusion in the Portuguese public.

José Sócrates is divorced and has two children. Although his real family name is Pinto de Sousa , he is known as José Sócrates .

Political career

José Sócrates together with Lula da Silva in Brasília

He began his political career during the Carnation Revolution as a member of the JSD , the youth organization of the Christian Democratic-Conservative Partido Social Democrata (PSD); however, he resigned from the youth association after a year.

In 1981 he became a member of the social democratic Partido Socialista (PS), of which he was promoted to board member and press spokesman in 1991 and was elected general secretary in September 2004. From 1986 to 1995 he was President of the Castelo Branco District . In 1987 he was elected to the Portuguese Parliament and from 1999 to 2002 he was Environment Minister under the António Guterres government .

Due to political instability caused by the coalition government of the PSD and CDS-PP of Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes , President Jorge Sampaio announced early parliamentary elections on November 30, 2004. The subsequent elections for the Assembleia da República on February 20, 2005, Sócrates won with the PS with an absolute majority and was then elected Prime Minister by Parliament.

After Portugal took over the Council Presidency of the European Union from Germany on July 1, 2007 , Sócrates, as its chairman, was given the opportunity to make a name for himself in an internationally important political office.

In the 2009 parliamentary election , Sócrates' ruling party achieved a clear victory, but failed to achieve the absolute majority achieved in 2005.

After a failed parliamentary vote on his government's fourth austerity package, he submitted his resignation on March 23, 2011. Until the new elections on June 5, he continued to hold the office. After the election, he was replaced as Prime Minister of Portugal by the Christian Democratic-Conservative Pedro Passos Coelho on June 15.

Following the lost parliamentary elections on June 5, 2011, José Sócrates announced his resignation as chairman of the PS on television.

Controversy

Freeport

Since 2005, and especially again in 2009, the Portuguese and British media have reported that during his tenure as Environment Minister in the then cabinet of Prime Minister António Guterres during the approval process for the construction of the outlet shopping center by the British company Freeport near the planned new international Lisbon airport near Alcochete is said to have deliberately circumvented environmental protection regulations. Part of the shopping center was planned in a special environmental protection zone in the estuary of the Tejo River . The affair dominated the public reporting and parliamentary debates in Portugal for several months.

While Portuguese law enforcement authorities, according to official information, did not initiate an investigation against Sócrates and the Prime Minister confirmed that the Freeport project met all legal requirements, the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) , which was entrusted with the prosecution of serious fraud , wanted the truthfulness of the information in Portugal do not confirm published reports. On a DVD from the British police, the contents of which reached the Portuguese press in March 2009, the expert Charles Smith, who was responsible for handling the approval process, accused the Portuguese prime minister of corruption and accused him of accepting private payments through a cousin for the licensing of the construction project to have. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) completed the investigation in November 2009 and returned the investigation to the Portuguese authorities.

Corruption scandal

On November 22, 2014, Sócrates was arrested at Lisbon Airport on suspicion of tax evasion, money laundering and corruption. At the same time as Sócrates, three other suspects were arrested: his friend Carlos Santos Silva from the construction company Lena, his lawyer Goncalo Ferreira, who worked for the second Santos company Proengel and has since been released subject to conditions, and his driver João Perna.

Sócrates was only released from custody a year later, and in September 2015 - in the middle of the parliamentary election campaign - he was placed under house arrest in his apartment. On October 16, 2015, two weeks after the elections, he was allowed to leave the house for the first time.

Web links

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

• Portuguese Government website (Portuguese)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Thomas Fischer: Mass protest against austerity plans in Portugal. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. May 31, 2010, No. 122, p. 3.
2. ↑ http://www.dw-world.de/dw/function/0,,12356_cid_4729287,00.html (link not available)
3. ↑ http://www.news-adhoc.com/portugal-sozialisten-gewinnen-wahl-idna2009092754684/ (link not available)
4. ^ Austerity package: Portugal's government collapsed March 23, 2011
5. ↑ Legislativas 2011: Resultados Globais (German overall result) ( Memento of July 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) June 5, 2011 (Portuguese)
6. ↑ Público: PSD wins, Portugal swings to the right and Socrates resigns as head of PS ( Memento from June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) June 5, 2011 (Portuguese)
7. ↑ Elizabeth Nash: Portugal PM vows to defend honor over mall . In: The Independent , January 29, 2009.
8. ↑ Portuguese PM denies taking bribes from British firm ( Memento of February 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (AFP), January 24, 2009.
9. ↑ PM under UK investigation? ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2011) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Portugal News Online (January 31, 2009) 
10. ↑ Freeport Plc ( Memento of November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), press release of the Serious Froud Office of November 13, 2009 (accessed on November 26, 2010)
11. ↑ http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/portugal-frueherer-premierminister-socrates-in-haft-a-1004808.html , Spiegel Online Politik, November 25, 2014 (accessed on July 8, 2015)
12. ↑ José Sócrates sai de casa pela primeira vez - Portugal - Correio da Manhã. October 16, 2015, accessed October 28, 2015 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Pedro Santana Lopes	Prime Minister of Portugal 2005–2011	Pedro Passos Coelho