Jose Manuel Durão Barroso

This name follows the Portuguese onomastic. The mother's name is Durão and the father's name is Barroso.

José Manuel Durão Barroso (Lisbon, March 23, 1956) is a Portuguese lawyer, administrator, professor and politician, current president of Goldman Sachs International. He was president of the European Commission from the November 23, 2004 until October 31, 2014 and Prime Minister of Portugal from April 6, 2002 to July 17, 2004. He is married with three children.

Training and beginning of his career

Durão Barroso graduated in Law from the University of Lisbon, studied Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Geneva and was an Assistant Professor at Georgetown Law School, later returning to Lisbon and becoming Director of the Relations Department International from the Lusíada University.

Political change

In the 1970s, before the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, as a student he adopted the Maoist ideology. Barroso was part of the PCTP/MRPP, a party from which he was expelled for the theft of a truck furniture of the Faculty of Law during the Carnation Revolution, and in December 1980 he joined the Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD), of which he would become leader and in which he continues to this day.

During the governments of Aníbal Cavaco Silva, he held the following positions:

• Assistant Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior (1985-1987)
• Secretary of State for External Affairs (1987-1992)
• Minister for Foreign Affairs (1992-1995)

In 1995, Barroso was elected to the Portuguese Parliament. Four years later, he would be appointed president of the PSD and, therefore, leader of the opposition.

Government

He became Portuguese Prime Minister on April 6, 2002 by winning the elections held shortly before. His policy was marked by economic conservatism and support for the Iraq War.

European Commission

Berlaymont Building, headquarters of the European Commission.

On June 29, 2004, Barroso resigned as Prime Minister of Portugal after being elected by the European Council to chair the European Commission, a position in which he succeeded the Italian Romano Prodi, being re-elected on September 16, 2009 for a additional period of 5 years.

The election of the Commission led by Barroso was not without controversy.^{[citation needed]} In the first proposal presented to the European Parliament, the Commissioner for Justice and vice president was Rocco Buttiglione. Faced with the evidence that, for various reasons, Parliament was not going to accept the Commission, Barroso made a series of changes.^{[which one?]}

After replacing Rocco Buttiglione with Franco Frattini and Ingrida Udre with Andris Piebalgs, the Commission was finally presented to Parliament and approved.

In July 2014 Jean-Claude Juncker was elected as the new President of the European Commission, his term began on November 1, 2014.

Other activities

In July 2016, Barroso was appointed non-executive chairman of London-based Goldman Sachs International (GSI), the bank's largest subsidiary. He will also be a director of the bank.

In addition, Barroso has held the following positions (paid and unpaid):

• Bilderberg Meetings, member of the Steering Committee (since 2014)
• European Business Summit (EBS), Honorary Chairman of the Honorary Committee (since 2014)
• UEFA Foundation for Children, Board of Directors (since 2014)

Honours, Awards and Decorations

José Manuel Barroso has received a large number of distinctions and awards throughout his career.

Decorations: Medals and Badges

• 1.a class "Stara Planina", Bulgaria, March 2008.
• Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, First Class, Tallinn, February 2009.
• Big Knight of the Order of Vytautas the Great, Vilnius, June 2009.
• Medal and the Golden Insignature of the Royal Institute of European Studies, Royal Institute of European Studies Madrid, March 2009;
• Medal of Honorary Citizen and Gold Medal of the Hellenic Parliament, Athens, April 2009;
• Medal of Honor and Charity of the City of Athens, Athens, April 2009;
• Big Cross Knight of the Order of Charles III (14/11/2001).
• Big Knight of the Order of Civil Merit.
• Carlos V Award of the European Yuste Foundation (Cáceres), January 2014

Honorary Member

• Honorary Member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
• Honorary member of the Portuguese Academy of História, Lisbon, March 2008;

Honoris Causa

José Manuel Barroso has been distinguished with several Honoris Causa titles.

Doctor Honoris Causa

• Cãndido Mendes University, Rio de Janeiro, June 2006, in Social and Human Sciences.
• University of Edinburgh, November 2006, in science. For his role as Prime Minister of Portugal and his work in the European Commission.
• School of Higher Trade Studies (HEC), Paris, December 2006
• Warsaw School of Economics, Warsaw, November 2007
• Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil, March 2008
• University of Liverpool, July 2008, in Law.
• University "Nice Sophia Antipolis", Nice, November 2008
• Tomas Bata University, Zlin, Czech Republic, April 2009.
• Chemnitz Polytechnic University, Germany, May 2009.
• University of Pittsburgh, USA. September 2009, in International and Public Affairs.
• Universidad Escio de Sá, Rio de Janeiro, July 2010.
• University of Łódź, Poland, October 2010.
• University of Geneva, October 2010.
• University of Bucharest, November 2010.
• Baku State University, Azerbaijan, January 2011.
• LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, March 2011
• University of Ghent, March 2011.

Other honoris causa degrees

• Roger Williams University, Rhode Island, United States, in 2005.
• Georgetown University, Washington DC, 2006, Humanities.
• University of Genova Studies, Italy, 2006, in Political Sciences.
• University of Kobe, Japan, April 2006, in Law.
• Academic title of EBAPE – FGV, Fundación Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, August 2007, for the outstanding contribution and services to administrative studies and practices.

Other information

During the 2002 electoral campaign in Portugal, his wife, Margarida Uva, dedicated the poem "Sigamos o Cherne" (trans.: Let's Follow the Grouper), by Alexandre O'Neill, which has earned it the nickname "grouper".

He was the host of the Summit of the Azores prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.