EUROPEAN UNION: From Mao to Bush – The Long March of Portugal’s PM

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Jun 29 2004 (IPS) - The spirited Maoist student leader at the University of Lisbon, José Manuel Durão Barroso, never imagined during the turbulent years of the Portuguese revolution that three decades later he would become president of the European Commission, where conservative parties prevail.

The spirited Maoist student leader at the University of Lisbon, José Manuel Durão Barroso, never imagined during the turbulent years of the Portuguese revolution that three decades later he would become president of the European Commission, where conservative parties prevail.

The political history of the conservative Portuguese leader, now 48 years old, began during the leftist military ”Carnation Revolution” of 1974. He was the student leader of the Movement for the Renovation of the Proletariat Party/Portuguese-Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MRPP/PCP-ML).

This was a long name for a miniscule Mao-inspired organisation that had pegged the rest of the political left as ”revisionist”, ”social-fascist” and ”imperialist sell-outs”.

In the official biography of the man who is now Portugal’s prime minister, that period of his ”revolutionary outbreak” was left out.

After a brief mention – ”he began his political activity as a very young man, even before Apr. 25, 1974” – six years of his political life were omitted from the official text, which goes on to describe how in 1980 he joined the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which is conservative despite what its name might suggest.

In that Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic, Durão Barroso joined British Prime Minister Tony Blair and then-Prime Minister of Spain, José María Aznar, in confirming that they were the European friends of U.S. President George W. Bush, the ones he could count on to steadfastly support his decision to invade Iraq.

But Durão Barroso did not appear in the ”family photos” taken during that summit and, according to the political opposition, he merely played the role of ”butler” to the more powerful leaders.

In the election of Durão Barroso to preside over the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, it was not just his membership in the dominant family of the European People’s Party (EPP) that had some bearing.

Also crucial was his proven ”Atlanticism” (his friendly ties with Washington), at a time when the bloc is trying to rebuild relations with the Bush administration, say analysts.

Portugal is one of the faithful allies of the United States within the EU. The others currently are Britain, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.

Durão Barroso had pushed for that alliance – which also included Spain until Aznar was succeeded by socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – since the Azores Summit, even when public opinion surveys by the highly respected Catholic University found that 87 percent of respondents in Portugal opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The rest of the EU at the time – then comprising just 15 countries – led by France and Germany, and joined by Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden, spoke out against the military action that did not have the United Nations’ approval.

In the declaration of war on Iraq, Durão Barroso’s role, says Portuguese political analyst Teresa de Sousa, ”was more than just host” of the summit. The main concern of Portugal’s foreign ministry was ”to prevent the Azores Declaration from being interpreted as a gesture of hostility against the rest of the Europeans.”

>From the time he joined the PSD in 1980 to the pinnacle of his ideological trajectory in 2003 in the Azores, Durão Barroso accumulated a vast wealth of international experience.

He began as deputy minister of foreign relations from 1987 to 1992, where he contributed to ending the civil war in Angola (1975-1990) with a peace accord signed in May 1990 in the Portuguese village of Bissese.

In 1992, Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco e Silva made him head of the foreign ministry until his party was defeated by the socialists in 1995. Durão Barroso returned to the centre stage of politics in 1999 when he was elected president of the PSD, and his stature was only reinforced by his victory in the April 2002 legislative elections.

But that triumph, which pushed the socialists out of government, did not automatically open the doors to power because the PSD did not win an absolute majority.

To gain the keys to the São Bento palace, the official residence of the prime minister, he cobbled together an alliance with the Social Democratic Centre, expelled five years earlier from the EPP because of its right-wing and nationalist politics, and whose leader, now minister of Defence, Paulo Portas, had led a furious campaign against Cavaco e Silva.

The reactions to the nomination of Durão Barroso as the new European Commission chief were mostly positive, evident in the consensus of the European national leaders, and in the analysis of influential media like Britain’s The Times and BBC, and France’s Le Monde.

However, Le Monde did mention that Durão Barroso was the third choice of the EU, which on May 1 added 10 new members for a total of 25.

Portugal’s prime minister is the lowest common denominator, after the withdrawal of Britain’s Chris Patten and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, the latter being the candidate of Paris and Berlin but rejected by London and Rome, according to the French newspaper..

Durão Barroso’s nomination was announced Tuesday during a brief special summit in Brussels. Now it must be approved by the European Parliament, which is to meet in July, and where it is assumed he has more than enough support.

On Nov. 1, the Portuguese leader is thus expected to succeed Italy’s Romano Prodi for a five-year term as president of the European Commission.

As a smaller, poorer EU member, Portugal has usually been relegated to the periphery, but has recently been the centre of international attention, as it hosts the Football Eurocup, to end Sunday. And now a Portuguese man will be heading to Brussels to preside over debate on the fate of the world’s leading economic power.