JOSé SóCRATES

'José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa', GCIH (pron. IPA []; born in Vilar de Maçada¹ September 6, 1957) is a Portuguese politician, secretary-general of the Socialist Party and prime minister of Portugal since March 12, 2005. For the second half of 2007, he is the President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union. In addition to these posts, José Sócrates was Portugal's Minister for Youth and Sports and one of the organizers of the EURO 2004 football championship in Portugal, as well as being a former Portugal's Minister for Environment, in the government teams of António Guterres.

Contents

Biography

Early years

Education

Political career

Personal life

Prime Minister of Portugal

XVII Governo Constitucional

Major policies

Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Sócrates-Independente affair

Notes and References

External links

Biography

Early years

José Sócrates was born in Porto on the 6th September, 1957, but was registered as a newborn in Vilar de Maçada, Alijó municipality in northeastern Portugal, since the locality was his family ancestral homeland. However, the young José Sócrates lived throughout his childhood and teen years with his father, a divorced architect, in the city of Covilhã, Cova da Beira subregion in central inland Portugal, in the Centro region.

Education

José Sócrates studied in Covilhã's basic and secondary schools, until the age of 18. Then, in 1975, he went to Coimbra in order to attend a higher education institution. He earned in 1979 his 4-year ''bacharelato'' degree as a civil technical engineer from the ''Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra'' (established in 1974 and later incorporated into the ''Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra'' in 1988). From 1987 to 1993, he attended ''Universidade Lusíada'', a private university in Lisbon, enrolling in law, but dropped out.^[2] In 1994/95, already a well known politician, he briefly attended the ''Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa'' where he completed some academic disciplines in order to get a CESE diploma (a complementary diploma to his ''bacharelato'' degree because until 1999 the polytechnic institutions did not offer ''licenciatura'' degrees), but instead, under circumstances which would provoke a fait-divers controversy in 2007, he earned in 1996 the ''licenciatura'' (licentiate degree) in civil engineering from the ''Universidade Independente'', a private university in Lisbon.^[3] He also has an MBA awarded in 2005 by ISCTE, a public university institute in Lisbon.^[4]

Political career

José Sócrates was one of the founders of JSD (the youth branch of PSD - Portuguese Social Democratic Party) before changing his political affiliation and apply for membership in the PS - Portuguese Socialist Party. He has been a member of the Socialist Party since 1981. José Sócrates served as a technical engineer for the Covilhã City Council, and was a member of the Portuguese Parliament from 1987 until 1995, representing the Castelo Branco electoral district. While serving as the chairperson of the Castelo Branco Federation of the Socialist Party (1983-1996), he was elected to the Party's National Secretariat in 1991. From 1989 to 1996, he served as a member of the Covilhã Municipal Assembly. He served as spokesperson on environmental affairs for the Socialist Party from 1991 to 1995. In 1995, he entered government as secretary of state for Environment in the first government of António Guterres. Two years later, Sócrates became Minister for Youth and Sports and was one of the organizers of the EURO 2004 cup in Portugal. He became Minister for Environment in Guterres' second government in 1999. Following the elections of 2002 (won by José Manuel Durão Barroso), Sócrates became a member of the opposition in the Portuguese Parliament. After the resignation of Ferro Rodrigues as party leader in 2004, he won a bid for the post of secretary-general against Manuel Alegre and João Soares, winning the vote of nearly 80% of party members on 24 September 2004. After the landslide victory of his party in the 2005 Portuguese election, Sócrates was called on 24 February by president Jorge Sampaio to form a new government - the ''XVII Governo Constitucional''.

Personal life

A father of two, Sócrates is currently divorced, and lives in Lisbon although being a registered elector of the municipality of Covilhã until this day, which means he votes there every time is needed.

Prime Minister of Portugal

After the 2005 Portuguese Parliament election, Sócrates was called on 24 February by president Jorge Sampaio to form a new government. Sócrates and his government (''XVII Governo Constitucional'') took office in March 12 2005.

XVII Governo Constitucional

'Ministry'	'Minister'	'Terms of Office'
State and Administration	António Costa	2005-03-12
	Rui Pereira	2007-05-17
State and Foreign Affairs	Diogo Freitas do Amaral	2005-03-12
	Luís Amado	2006-07-03
State and Finances	Luís Campos e Cunha	2005-03-12
	Fernando Teixeira dos Santos	2005-07-21
Presidency	Pedro Silva Pereira	2005-03-12
National Defence	Luís Amado	2005-03-12
	Nuno Severiano Teixeira	2006-07-03
Justice	Alberto Costa	2005-03-12
Environment	Francisco Nunes Correia	2005-03-12
Economy	Manuel Pinho	2005-03-12
Agriculture	Jaime Silva	2005-03-12
Public Works and Communications	Mário Lino	2005-03-12
Labour and Social Solidarity	José Vieira da Silva	2005-03-12
Health	António Correia de Campos	2005-03-12
Education	Maria de Lurdes Rodrigues	2005-03-12
Science, Technology and High Education	Mariano Gago	2005-03-12
Culture	Isabel Pires de Lima	2005-03-12
Parliamentary Affairs	Augusto Santos Silva	2005-03-12

Major policies

''XVII Governo Constitucional'' government, headed by Prime Minister José Sócrates, created new rules and implemented reforms aiming better efficiency and rationalized resource allocation in the public sector, fighting civil servant excedentary overcapacity (''excedentários'') and achieving less bureaucracy for both citizens and companies (eg: ''empresa na hora'' [1], ''PRACE - Programa de Reestruturação da Administração Central do Estado'' [2], and SIMPLEX - Programa de Simplificação Administrativa e Legislativa [3]), among others. Since the ''XVII Governo Constitucional'' government (with José Sócrates as Prime Minister and Teixeira dos Santos as Minister of Finance) Portugal's fiscal policy improved with a steady increase of the number of taxpayers and the growth of the receipt amount from State taxation. Several reforms and measures implemented in 2006/2007 by the government (''XVII Governo Constitucional'' - headed by Prime Minister José Sócrates), resulted in improved welfare system financial sustainability but reduced income expectations of future pensioners by nearly 40%, and workers must now work for more years before retirement.
One of the government's main policies was the ''Plano Tecnológico'' (Technological Plan), aimed to increase Portugal's competitive advantage through the modernization of its economy. The plan consisted of three key areas: knowledge, technology and innovation. The government goal was to modernize the Portuguese economy by concentrating its efforts and investment in these three key areas.[4]
The government allocated more resources for education policy and reorganised the sector aiming more choice and better quality in vocational technical education. Enhanced and improved vocational technical education programs where implemented in 2007 in an effort to revitalize this sector which had been almost discontinued after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Other education policies included more financial support for students (in all educational levels), systematic teaching and school evaluation, ranking and benchmarking of teaching institutions and even the compulsory closing of some problematic private higher education institutions.
Prime Minister José Sócrates and his government team supported the decision of building new transportation infranstructure such as a new airport for Lisbon (see Ota Airport) and a TGV network.

Presidency of the Council of the European Union

José Sócrates as Prime Minister of Portugal, presided over the rotative Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the period Jul-Dec 2007.[5] In this post, Sócrates and his team focused on the EU-Brazil (1st EU-Brazil summit) and EU-African Union (Euro-Africa Summit Lisbon 2007) relations, as well as in the approval of the Reform Treaty (which is intended to become known as the Treaty of Lisbon).

Sócrates-Independente affair

In March 2007, ''Universidade Independente'' (UnI), a private university in Lisbon, was placed under investigation on alleged irregularities on several matters. In that same month, Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates' ''licenciatura'' degree in civil engineering by ''Universidade Independente'' was put under enormous public scrutiny.^[3] A strong case was built up related to possible false declarations by José Sócrates regarding his university degree, and the way he was awarded this degree in civil engineering. Some Portuguese news media professionals stated that Sócrates or members of his staff, through phone calls, threatened court action against journalists and tried to stop the reportings on his ''licenciatura'' degree awarded by UnI.^[6] On April 9 2007, ''Universidade Independente'' was closed by government officials after an investigation reported several serious irregularities in the running of this private university. Under heavy pressure, the Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates provided his version of the facts on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 in a live broadcast interview for RTP 1 TV channel and RDP radio. The Prime Minister stated he was not favoured by ''Universidade Independente'' to obtain the degree, declared he had been the target of "catty accusations", and defended the authenticity of this degree, though admitting he is not a full chartered civil engineer.^[7] Before he had been granted the degree, he presented himself as an "engineer" when he was solely a "technical engineer". Portuguese Parliament documents with official information on Sócrates personal data were found proving such inconsistencies.^[8] Sócrates and his staff replied to this by stating that it was probably a misunderstanding in the parliamentary services. After having the ''licenciatura'' diploma he used the title "engineer" in several official documentation, despite the fact that his unaccredited degree in civil engineering from ''Universidade Independente'' was not legally recognized to allow for the use of the title "engineer"; a profession which is regulated in Portugal by the ''Ordem dos Engenheiros''. In the interest of accuracy, he should have used "licenciado em engenharia civil" instead of "engenheiro". José Sócrates was fiercely criticised by members of Portugal's democratic opposition in the Parliament regarding both proved and unproven issues related with this controversy.

On August 17, 2007, a new controversy arose after the discovery that a government computer had been used to remove all the references to the Sócrates-Independente affair from Wikipedia.^[9]

Notes and References

1. Actually born in Porto but registered in his father's rural village: "Um osso duro de roer", unofficial biography published in 2005 in the Diário de Notícias
2. ''Sócrates estudou Direito na Universidade Lusíada'', in Público
3. ''Há falhas no dossier de José Sócrates na Universidade Independente'', in Público newspaper
4. ''Director do Público admite «confusão» no caso do MBA de José Sócrates'', in Sol newspaper
5. ''Há falhas no dossier de José Sócrates na Universidade Independente'', in Público newspaper
6. Sofia Branco - José Manuel Fernandes e Sarsfield Cabral disseram ter havido ameaças de processos judiciais, in Público
7. José Sócrates espera que entrevista à RTP e RDP tenha sido esclarecedora, in Rádio e Televisão de Portugal
8. PSD comunicou a Gama que registos de Sócrates eram assunto encerrado, in Rádio e Televisão de Portugal
9. Government computer removed content related to the Sócrates-Independente controversy from Wikipedia, in Público

External links

★ Portuguese government website - Official web site

★ Portuguese government website - Official web site