José Sócrates

José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, [ ʒuzɛ sɔkɾɐtɨʃ kɐrvaʎu Pintu də sozɐ ] listen? / I usually just José Sócrates, ( born September 6, 1957 in Vilar de Macada ) is a Portuguese politician. Since September 2004 he has been Secretary General of the Partido Socialista ( PS), the Portuguese Socialist Party, and on March 12, 2005 to June 15, 2011 he was Prime Minister of Portugal. After a failed parliamentary vote on the austerity package of his reign he gave on 23 March 2011 his resignation. He had in the second half of 2007, held the office of President of the European Council, the EU's supreme body.

Life

Training

Sócrates was born on September 6, 1957 in Porto, however, was his birthplace in Vilar de Macada, Alijó, registered in the northeast of the country. His childhood and youth were spent in the city of Covilhã in the Centro region. After primary and secondary school education, he went in 1975 at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra ( ISEC ), which was later integrated into the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra. There Sócrates studied Civil Engineering with specialization in plumbing with a degree from the New University of Lisbon.

Between 1987 and 1993 he attended the private University Lusíada in Lisbon, where he enrolled for Legal Studies, the study but did not graduate. In 1994, he returned as already known politician back to the ISEC, on which he wanted to finish his academic training with a CESE diploma. Instead, however, it was 1996, a licenciatura the Universidade Independente awarded in civil engineering, which caused in the Portuguese public confusion.

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

Political career

His political career began in the Carnation Revolution as a member of the JSD, the youth wing of the conservative Social Democratic Party ( PSD); However, he stepped out after one year from the youth league again.

In 1981 he became a member of the Portuguese Socialist Party ( PS), in 1991, he rose to become a board member and press secretary and was elected in September 2004 to the Secretary-General. From 1986 to 1995 he took the position of Head of the District of Castelo Branco. In 1987 he was elected to the Portuguese Parliament and was Minister of the Environment from 1999 to 2002 under the government of António Guterres.

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

After July 1, 2007 as scheduled Portugal took over the presidency of the European Union of Germany, Sócrates was given the opportunity to distinguish themselves in an internationally important political office as its chairman.

In the parliamentary elections of 2009 Sócrates ' government party won a clear victory after initial forecasts, but missed the 2005 -won an absolute majority.

After a failed parliamentary vote on the austerity package of his reign he gave on 23 March 2011 his resignation. Until the elections on June 5, he held the office business leader continues. After the election he was replaced by Pedro Passos Coelho Social Democrats on June 15 as Prime Minister of Portugal.

Following the lost parliamentary elections of June 5, 2011 José Sócrates announced on television that he will retire as chairman of the PS.

Controversies

Freeport

Since 2005, and especially again in 2009 reported Portuguese and British media that the Prime Minister in his tenure as environment minister in the then Cabinet of the 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 at Alcochete aware of environmental regulations should have bypassed. The shopping center was planned in part in a special environmental zone in the estuary of the Tagus River. The affair certain public reporting and parliamentary debates in Portugal for several months.

While Portuguese law enforcement agencies according to official figures ushered no investigation of Sócrates and the Prime Minister reiterated that the Freeport project fulfills all legal requirements, wanted the British Serious Fraud Office ( SFO), which was entrusted with the prosecution of serious fraud, the veracity of the published in Portugal not confirm reports.

On a DVD, the British police, whose contents reached the Portuguese press in March 2009, the body responsible for managing the authorization system expert Charles Smith threw the Portuguese head of government corruption before and accused him received private payments for the licensing of the construction project for a cousin have to.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO ) has completed the investigation in November 2009 and the matter returned to the Portuguese investigators.