Jaime Gama
Jaime José Matos da Gama ( born June 8, 1947 in Faja de Baixo, Sao Miguel, Azores ) is a Portuguese politician.
Study and first political activities
Gama graduated in philosophy at the University of Lisbon. As a student, he took part in protests against the policies of the fascist Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and was arrested the age of eighteen in 1965 for the first time because of an article in a local newspaper. In 1969 he was a member of the opposition alliance Ceud, the subject, however, in the parliamentary elections against the National Union under the successor of Salazar, Marcelo Caetano, due to election fraud. He then worked as a journalist with the opposition newspaper República and one of the founders of the Socialist Party ( Partido Socialista ) on 19 April 1973 at the German exile in Bad Münster Eifel.
Minister and Speaker of Parliament
Since 1975, Gama is one of the Assembly of the Republic ( Assembleia da República ). There he represented initially until 1983, the interests of the Azores and since then the city of Lisbon.
After the end of the authoritarian regime, he belonged to the second cabinet of Prime Minister Mário Soares as minister of internal administration for a short time in 1978.
9 June 1983 to November 6, 1985, he was Foreign Minister in the third cabinet of Soares. The Office of the Foreign Minister, he also held on 30 October 1995 to 6 April 2002, the second cabinet of António Guterres. In this capacity he was in the first half of 2000 and President of the Council of the European Union and from 1 January to April 6, 2002 acting chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This existing in each calendar year took office, his successor as Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz for the remainder of 2002. On March 10, 2001, he was one of the signatories of the Treaty of Nice, the extent amended the Maastricht Treaty, as that resolutions of the European Union only provide a qualified majority instead of the previous unanimity.
He was also for a short period from 29 May 1999 until October 25, 1999 Minister of National Defence, as well as from 25 October 1999 to April 6, 2002 Minister of State. An offer to succeed Guterres as Prime Minister, he refused.
In March 2005, Gama was elected Speaker of Parliament and thus by the President Aníbal Cavaco Silva according to the constitution of the second most powerful man in Portugal. In this capacity he gave on 22 November 2005 the North - South Prize of the Council of Europe to the Irish musician Bob Geldof.