José Manuel Barroso

José Manuel Durão Barroso (born 23 March 1956) is a Portuguese politician and law professor.

Barroso's became politically active in his late teens, during the Estado Novo regime in Portugal, before the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974.

In his university days, he was one of the leaders of the underground Maoist MRPP (Re-Organized Movement of the Proletariat Party, later Portuguese Workers' Communist Party (PCTP/MRPP), Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers/Revolutionary Movement of the Portuguese Proletariat).

In an interview with the newspaper Expresso, he said that he had joined MRPP to fight the only other student body movement, also underground, which was controlled by the Portuguese Communist Party.

Despite this justification, there is a very famous political 1976 interview recorded by the Portuguese state-run television channel, RTP, in which Barroso, as a politically minded student during the post-Carnation Revolution turmoil known as PREC, criticises the bourgeois education system which "throws students against workers and workers against students."

His academic career began as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon.

Barroso did PhD research at Georgetown University and Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., but his CV does not list any doctoral degree (except honorary).

Back in Lisbon, Barroso became director of the Department for International Relations at Lusíada University (Universidade Lusíada).

In December 1980, Barroso joined the right-of-centre PPD (Democratic Popular Party, later PPD/PSD-Social Democratic Party), where he remains to the present day.

In 1985, under the PSD government of Aníbal Cavaco Silva, 113th prime minister of Portugal, Barroso was named Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

In 1987 he became a member of the same government as he was elevated to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (answering to the Minister of Foreign Affairs), a post he was to hold for the next five years.

In this capacity, he was the driving force behind the Bicesse Accords of 1990, which led to a temporary armistice in the Angolan Civil War between the ruling MPLA and the opposition UNITA.

He also supported independence for East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, then a province of Indonesia by force.

In 1992, 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 1995, while in opposition, Barroso was elected to the Assembly of the Republic as a representative for Lisbon.

He became chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

In 1998 he graduated from the Georgetown Leadership Seminar.

In 1999 he was elected president of the PSD, succeeding Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (a professor of law), 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 Barroso subsequently became Prime Minister of Portugal on 6 April 2002.

As prime minister, facing a growing budget deficit, he made a number of difficult decisions and adopted strict reforms.

He vowed to reduce public expenditure, which made him unpopular among leftists and public servants..

His purpose was to lower the public budget deficit to a 3% target (according to the demands of EU rules), and official data during the 2002–2004 period stated that the target was being attained.

In March 2003, Barroso hosted U.S President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar in the Portuguese island of Terceira, in the Azores.

The four leaders finalised the controversial US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Under Barroso's leadership, Portugal became part of the "coalition of the willing" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, sending non-combat troops.

On 30 January 2003, Barroso signed The letter of the eight supporting US. policy on Iraq.

He previously served as the 115th prime minister of Portugal and from 2004–2014 as the 11th president of the European Commission.

He has been one of the revolving door cases at the EU, which received the most media attention because only two months after the cooling off period, Barroso accepted a position as "senior adviser " and "non-executive chairman" of Goldman Sachs International.

and became subject of an ethics inquiry.

Jose Barroso was born in Lisbon to Luís António Saraiva Barroso and his wife Maria Elisabete de Freitas Durão.

Durão Barroso (as he is known in Portugal ) graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon.

He subsequently obtained a Diploma in European Studies from the European University Institute, and received a MA degree with honours in both Political Science and Social Sciences from the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Barroso did not finish his term as he had been nominated as president of the European Commission on 5 July 2004.

Barroso arranged with Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio to nominate Pedro Santana Lopes as a substitute prime minister of Portugal.

In 2004, the proposed European Constitution and now the Treaty of Lisbon included a provision that the choice of the president must take into account the result of Parliamentary elections and the candidate supported by the victorious Europarty in particular.

That provision was not in force in the nomination in 2004, but the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), who won the elections, pressured for a candidate from its own ranks.

In the end, Barroso, as EPP candidate, was chosen by the European Council.

During his first presidency, the following issues were on the Commission's agenda: Turkey applying for EU membership, the reform of the institutions (Treaty of Lisbon), the Bolkestein directive, aimed at creating a single market for services within the EU, Lisbon Strategy, Galileo positioning system, Doha Development Agenda negotiations, European Institute of Innovation and Technology and an EU climate change package.

Santana Lopes led the PSD/PP coalition for a few months until early 2005, when new elections were called.

When the Portuguese Socialist Party won the elections it produced an estimation that by the end of the year the budget deficit would reach 6.1%, which it used to criticise Barroso's and Santana Lopes's economic policies.