José Manuel Durão Barroso

José Manuel Durão Barroso (pronounced: IPA, ) (born in Lisbon, March 23, 1956) is a Portuguese politician and the 11th President of the European Commission. He served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 6 April 2002 until 29 June 2004, when he resigned to become President-designate of the European Commission. The appointment was formally endorsed by the European Parliament on July 22, and he was due to take over officially from Romano Prodi on 1 November 2004. However, this process was delayed until 23 November due to problems regarding parliamentary approval of the Barroso Commission.

José Durão Barroso is married to Margarida Sousa Uva, with whom he has three sons: Luís, Guilherme and Francisco.

Academic career

He graduated in Law from the University of Lisbon and has an MSc in Economic and Social Sciences from the University of Geneva in Switzerland. His academic career continued as an Assistant Professor in the Law School of the University of Lisbon and at Georgetown University and Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in (Washington DC), where he did research for a Ph.D. He is a 1998 graduate of the Georgetown Leadership Seminar. Back in Lisbon, Durão Barroso became Director of the Department for International Relations in the Lusíada University.

Political career

Portugal

Durão Barroso's political activity began in his college days, before the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. He was one of the leaders of the Maoist PCTP-MRPP (Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers - Revolutionary Movement of the Portuguese Proletariat). In December 1980, however, Durão Barroso joined the right-of-centre Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD), where he remains to the present day.

In 1985, Durão Barroso joined the PSD government of Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva as Assistant Secretary of State at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1987 he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, a post he was to hold for the next five years. In this capacity he was the main force behind the Bicesse Accords of 1990, which led to a temporary armistice in Angola's civil war between the ruling MPLA and the opposition UNITA guerrillas of Jonas Savimbi. He also supported independence for East Timor, the former Portuguese colony, then a province of Indonesia by force. In 1992, Durão Barroso was promoted to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, and served in this capacity until the defeat of the PSD in the 1995 general election.

In opposition, Durão Barroso was elected in 1995 as a representative for Lisbon in the Assembly of the Republic where he became chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1999 he was elected president of his own political party, the PSD, and thus became Leader of the Opposition. Parliamentary elections in 2002 gave the PSD enough seats to form a coalition government with the right-wing Portuguese People's Party, and Durão Barroso consequently became Prime Minister of Portugal on 6 April 2002. As Prime Minister, he made a number of controversial decisions and implemented courageous reforms. He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which most Portuguese opposed, and reduced public expenditure which made him considerably unpopular among leftists and many public servants. On July 5 2004, during a one-hour meeting with Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, Barroso announced the terms of the cessation of his job as Prime Minister of Portugal. According to Barroso, he left office to prepare for the European Commission job, safe in the knowledge that he was acting in Portugal's "best national interest" and that he was confident in the stability of its "democratic institutions".

Barroso's successor in Portuguese Government

José Durão Barroso resigned to become President of the European Commission, and made clear that he had resigned as Prime Minister of Portugal in the belief that he would be succeeded by Pedro Santana Lopes. But Santana Lopes nomination, the Lisbon mayor with a reputation of populist leader with little government or international experience and eurosceptic leanings, has provoked heated opposition in his own Social Democrat Party (PSD) and from rival parties. His opponents on the left were concerned that Paulo Portas, Minister of Defence and leader of the right wing Popular Party (PP), the junior coalition partner, could gain greater influence. The PP had in the past espoused significantly more conservative policies on immigration and Europe than the Social Democrats. Pressure for a more eurosceptic approach caused tensions within the coalition and proved potentially embarrassing for José Durão Barroso as Commission President. President Jorge Sampaio warned that he would use his constitutional powers to intervene if Pedro Santana Lopes failed to uphold Barroso's commitment to fiscal rigour or seeks to make substantial changes in the previous government's policies on Europe, defence, justice and foreign affairs. Santana Lopes' short period in office lasted from July 12 to December 11 2004 when Santana Lopes announced the resignation of the government. He had been appointed after his party (PSD) proposed him for the post of Prime Minister, being thereafter accepted and formally invited by President Jorge Sampaio.

European Union

In June 2004, following his being proposed as a consensus candidate, the European Council appointed José Manuel Durão Barroso President-designate of the European Commission. The European Parliament endorsed him in the position by 413 votes to 251, with 44 blank ballots and three spoilt ones.

Among Durão Barroso's goals as President of the European Commission is to revive public confidence in the Commission, which is widely regarded as having lost its sense of direction since the departure of Jacques Delors, who presided over it from 1985 to 1995 and who is widely regarded as its most dynamic and successful president ever.

Before his appointment, Durão Barroso was expected to be a cautious reformer, and is considered likely to champion the interests of Europe's smaller states. He has said that he opposes capping EU spending, from which many EU Member States benefits greatly.

While he was president of the European Commission, there were the following important issues in the EU :

Bolkestein directive, is an initiative of the European Commission aimed at creating a single market for services within the European Union.
Lisbon Agenda
Galileo positioning system
Bugdet controversy (see also: UK rebate).
Doha Development Agenda negotiations (esp. the negotiations about agricultural protectionism).

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