Margarida Marques

Margarida Marques

Maria Margarida Ferreira Marques , also Margarida Marques for short (born March 2, 1954 in Bombarral ) is a Portuguese politician ( PS ). Marques has been committed to the Portuguese socialists for several decades, including serving as a member of the Portuguese Parliament (1981–1983, 2015–2019) and State Secretary for European Affairs in the Costa I cabinet (2015–2017). She won a mandate in the 2019 European elections and has been a member of the 9th European Parliament since then.

Life

Education and professional career

Margarida Marques was born on March 2, 1954 in the Portuguese town of Bombarral (near Caldas da Rainha). After finishing school, she studied mathematics at the University of Lisbon until 1976. Immediately after completing her studies, in 1976 she started working as a civil servant at the Portuguese Ministry of Transport, where she worked until 1983. After serving two years in the Portuguese Parliament from 1983 to 1985, she moved to the Ministry of Education, where she worked until 1994. In parallel to her work in the ministry, she completed a Masters in Education at the New University of Lisbon until 1991. During her time at the Ministry of Education, she held the position of deputy head of the department for technical, artistic and vocational training, and was responsible for the (re) establishment of Portuguese vocational schools.

In 1994 Marques moved to Brussels, where she began to work for the European Commission: first in the Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC), then for the Directorate General for Communication (DG COMM). In the latter, she held the position of representative of the European Commission in Portugal from 2005 to 2011.

Political career

Margarida Marques began to get involved politically in the course of the democratization of Portugal ( Carnation Revolution ), and together with other colleagues she founded the youth association of the Portuguese socialists, the Juventude Socialista . From 1981 to 1984 she headed the youth association as its general secretary.

In the Portuguese parliamentary elections in 1980, Marques won a mandate in the Lisbon constituency for the list connection Frente Republicana e Socialista, which was led by the socialists . However, the legislature lasted only two years after Prime Minister Pinto Balsemão resigned and new elections were called.

Margarida Marques in her position as State Secretary for European Affairs with her Slovak counterpart Ivan Korčok

Marques then retired from active politics and devoted himself to her professional career. It was not until the 2015 parliamentary elections that António Costa, then the PS top candidate and then Prime Minister, persuaded Marques to return to politics. In the 2015 parliamentary elections, Marques won a PS in the constituency of Leiria. After the constitution of his minority government, Costa appointed Marques to his cabinet as State Secretary for European Affairs. She held the office until 2017, but had to resign after internal cabinet conflicts, although Marques is considered a "friend" of Prime Minister Costas.

In 2019, the PS placed Marques in fourth place on the list of European elections for the 2019 European elections: The PS won a total of 9 of the 21 Portuguese mandates in the European Parliament, making Marques a member of the ninth European Parliament. Above all, she named the completion of monetary union and social rights as her thematic focus. She became a member of the S&D parliamentary group , for which she is a member of the Committee on Budgets , of which she was elected vice-chair. She is also a deputy member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs .

Web links

Commons : Margarida Marques  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Margarida Marques in the database of Members of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Margarida Marques - Secretary of State for European Affairs XXI Constitutional Government. (PDF) OECD, 2016, accessed on June 21, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Como Costa deixou cair a amiga de semper. In: SOL. July 15, 2017, Retrieved June 21, 2019 (Portuguese). 
3. ↑ Margarida Marques: Já comecei a fazer a minha agenda como futura deputada europeia. In: Correio da Manhã. March 17, 2019, accessed June 21, 2019 (Portuguese). 
4. ↑ 9th legislative term | Margarida MARQUES | MPs | European Parliament. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .