José Manuel Barroso
José Manuel Durão Barroso [ ʒuzɛ mɐnu̯ɛl duɾɐu̯ bɐʁozu ] listen? / I ( born March 23, 1956 in Lisbon ) is a Portuguese politician and Member of the EPP. Since the end of November 2004 Barroso President of the European Commission (see Barroso Commission I). On September 16, 2009, he was elected by the European Parliament for a second term of five years ( Barroso II Commission ).
From 2002 to 2004 he was Prime Minister of Portugal.
Life
José Manuel Barroso studied law and political science in Lisbon, Florence and New York, and received his degree in Economics and Social Science at the University of Geneva ( Institut Européen de l' Université de Genève ). As an assistant professor, he specialized at the University of Lisbon on International Politics and continued his academic career in Geneva and at the Political Sciences Department at Georgetown University in Washington DC, where he did research for his doctorate (PhD). Returning to Lisbon, he became director of the departamento of International Relations at the University Lusíada in Porto in 1980.
Besides his native Portuguese Barroso is fluent in Spanish and French, which was him in obtaining the official helpful as Commission with the support of France. Barroso is a member of the Roman Catholic denomination. Shortly after taking office, he took a course to learn a little German. At the ceremony of the future price of the Bonn initiative Future Forum on 29 August 2007 Barroso delivered his speech in German. Barroso is married to Margarida Sousa Uva literary scholar and has three sons.
Political career in Portugal
Barroso's political career began in his student days, before the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. He was one of the party leaders of the PCTP - MRPP, a Maoist party. He soon turned from it and joined in December 1980, the Partido Social Democrata (PSD ) in which he is a member to this day. She is a conservative party that belongs to the European Parliament Group of the European People's Party, despite its name.
In his political career Barroso held the following positions as Prime Minister before his time:
- 1985-1987 Undersecretary of State at the Home Office.
- 1987-1992 State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
- 1992-1995 Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country.
In 1990, he served as Secretary of State, the driving force behind the Bicesse Agreement, which led to a temporary armistice in the Angolan civil war between the MPLA and UNITA of Jonas Savimbi. Durão Barroso supported the independence of East Timor from Indonesia.
After the electoral defeat of the PSD in 1995 he failed in an attempt to become leader of the PSD. He succeeded after a fierce intra-party power struggle until the year 1999, the Parliament Election 2002 his party won just ahead of the Socialists.; at the 2004 European election, according to Barroso's term of office, the strength ratio was reversed and the ruling PSD lost significantly in 2005 votes.
From 6 April 2002 to 12 July 2004 was Prime Minister Barroso of Portugal. During his tenure, he took a few steps, which met in the population of Portugal on resistance, such as support for the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, the privatization of state enterprises, and sharp cuts in public spending. Barroso explained his policy with the poor economy and the left by the PS previous government budget deficit. As a goal, he stressed the observance of the euro stability pact. Barroso achieved this in his two years in office - but only nominally:
"Instead of reducing particularly the spending, so as to come to a balanced budget, his administration resorted to in order to supplement the balance by so-called special revenues. It was only allowed to sell Barroso state investments, after taking over the business, he tapped into the pension fund of the state-owned postal company. When that was not enough, he let pass a law that would allow him future tax payments in the stock market to sell. The experts knew, of course, what they had to think of such numbers Cosmetics: " Portugal's regular loss at five percent," reported the " stock exchange newspaper" in November 2003, as Barroso was in the second year of his term. "
In the tenure Barroso there were several cabinet reshuffles: In April 2003 came Luís Valente de Oliveira from health problems and Isaltino Morais back because of a financial scandal involving Swiss accounts.
- The two ministers of his government António Martins da Cruz and Pedro Lynce both occurred in October 2003 because of a corruption scandal back.
- The last reshuffle in May 2004, covered the post of Minister for the Environment, Amilcar Theias presented with respect to a post- occupation of the board of the state-owned water utility Águas de Portugal against Barroso and had, among other things withdraw, therefore, under pressure from the Prime Minister.
Barroso's main activity during his career in Portugal was in foreign policy, where he occasionally received praise even from the opposition. This interest already showed up early and by almost the entire resume. During his time as Prime Minister of Portugal, he advocated a deepening of relations between the EU Commission and the Government of the United States.
Political career in Europe
As a 48 -year-old Conservative was nominated on 29 June 2004 by the European Council as a candidate for the post of Commission President and confirmed by the European Parliament on 22 July 2004, with 413 deputies voted for him, 251 against him and 44 abstaining and 24 MPs not cast their vote. Before mid-June were first Germany and France failed in its proposal the liberal Prime Minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt and then conservative government with its proposal of the British Chris Patten.
The Commission presented him first came in sight of not enough support in the European Parliament. The focus of the rejection of the countryside, the Social Democrats and the Left stood by, among other things, the proposed Commissioner Rocco Buttiglione for his statements on homosexuality and became embroiled at the time in a corruption scandal Ingrida UDRE. The planned vote on the Commission was then postponed to November. Two commissioners were replaced and Barroso told a Commissioner-designate a new department to. In this composition, the EU Commission Barroso was confirmed by the European Parliament on 18 November 2004. 449 deputies voted for him, 149 MPs voted against it and 82 MPs abstained.
On 9 July 2009 Barroso was formally nominated for a second term as Commission President. While the leaders of all 27 EU member states spoke out for re-election, the Social Democrats, Socialists and Greens had previously announced in the European Parliament, not wanting to always dial Barroso. They criticized, among other things Barroso's trade policy and that the financial crisis in Europe has been exacerbated by the policy of deregulation supported by him and by his slow response.
Given the criticism of Barroso 's decision of the European Parliament about the candidature of September 2009 has been postponed. September 16, 2009 Barroso was elected by the European Parliament for a second term of five years. For Barroso voted 382 deputies and 219 representatives of the people against him. The number of abstentions was 117
Since then, his tenure is dominated by the euro crisis ( Greek sovereign debt crisis, PIIGS ). As part of this, in May 2010, the European Council, the, euro rescue ' and signed in July 2011, the European Stability Mechanism ( it is to be ratified by the end of 2012). Critical questioning in the media for his stance on the breach of contract by the ECB and the EU in terms of purchases of government bonds insolvency of fragile States and the financial assistance in connection with his previous responsibility for Portugal's Finance Barroso interpreted as " defamation " and " bad comments ".
In addition, some institutions of the EU are looking for a new role distribution: since December 1, 2009, there is the first time a permanent President of the European Council ( Herman Van Rompuy ) and an EU foreign ministers ' ( Catherine Ashton ); this is my office at the same time Vice- President of the European Commission, chairman of the Council for Foreign Affairs and External Relations Officer of the European Council.
On June 17, 2013 Barroso announced together with U.S. President Barack Obama, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and UK Prime Minister David Cameron at a press conference on the sidelines of a meeting of the G8, the initiation of negotiations between the EU and U.S. on the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement TTIP as " powerful demonstration of the intention to create a free, open and based on agreed rules the world. "