José Manuel Barroso

José Manuel Barroso (born March 23, 1956, Lisbon, Portugal) Portuguese politician who served as prime minister of Portugal (2002–04) and president of the European Commission (2004–14).

Barroso was born to parents who hailed from the region of Valpaços, one of the poorer areas of Portugal. The difficulties of growing up under the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar influenced the development of Barroso’s political ideas, and he joined a Maoist student group while attending the University of Lisbon; he would later distance himself from that decision. After receiving a law degree there (1978), Barroso continued his studies at the University of Geneva, where he earned a European studies degree and a master’s degree (1981) in political science. He then began an academic career, serving as a teaching assistant at both of his alma maters. He also taught at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he did research for a Ph.D. In 1979 he founded the University Association for European Studies.

Barroso joined Portugal’s centre-right Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata; PSD) in 1980. When the party’s Aníbal Cavaco Silva was elected prime minister in 1985, he appointed Barroso undersecretary of state for the home affairs ministry. Two years later Barroso moved to secretary of state for the ministry of foreign affairs, before his promotion to minister of foreign affairs. He lost that post after the PSD’s 1995 defeat by Portugal’s Socialist Party, but he rose to party president in 1999. He was continually reelected—while simultaneously serving as vice president of the European People’s Party—until the 2002 parliamentary elections, which returned the PSD to power and made Barroso prime minister of Portugal.

In 2004 Barroso resigned from the Portuguese government to accept the post of president of the European Commission, the main executive body of the European Union. In 2009 the European Parliament approved a second five-year term for Barroso.