Mario Centeno designated as next finance minister of Portugal
The center-right President Anibal Cavaco Silva has approved the new cabinet presented by the incoming Prime Minister Antonio Costa. The designated Prime Minister Antonio Costa chose the 48 year old Mário Centeno to become finance minister of his Socialist minority government. Mário Centeno has earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He serves as Special Advisor of the Board of Portugal’s Central Bank. He is a labor economics specialist teaching at the Lisbon School of Economics & Management (ISEG-UTL). Can this choice reassure markets and investors that Portugal will not adopt an irresponsible economic and financial policy? Mario Centeno was largely responsible for the economic program of the Socialist electoral campaign. It advocated an end to the Portuguese austerity of the ousted, Conservative government Coelho. Nevertheless, Mário Centeno does not like to be compared to the infamous and incompetent, former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis.
The 47 year old Manuel Caldeira Cabral will become minister of the economy in the new, Socialist Portuguese government. Cabral is a professor of economics at the University of Minho
The historian and economics professor teaching at the University of Porto, Augusto Santos Silva (*1956), will become Minister of Foreign Affairs, the biochemist Tiago Brandão Minister of Education, José Azeredo Lopes Minister of Defense, Constança Urbano de Sousa Interior Minister, Francisca Van Dunem Justice Minister, Eduardo Cabrita Deputy Prime Minister, Pedro Marques Planning and Infrastructure Minister, Adalberto Campor Fernandes Health Minister Vieira da Silva Labor, Solidarity and Social Security Minister, Manuel Heitor Science and Higher Education Minister, Ana Paula Vitorino Minister of the Sea, Matos Fernandes Minister of the Environment, João Soares Minister of Culture, Capoulas Santos Minister of Agriculture and Maria Manuel Leitão Marques will be responsible for the Presidency and Public Services Reform.
The new Portuguese cabinet will be composed of 17 ministers, including 4 women, excluded Prime Minister Antonio Costa
The incoming Prime Minister Antonio Costa has served as mayor of the Portuguese capital Lisbon from 2007 until 2015 and as justice minister and minister of parliamentary affairs in previous Socialist governments. Antonio Costa promised that his Socialist minority government, which enjoys the support of the Communists and the Left Bloc in parliament, would respect the 3% of GDP budget deficit rule of the European Union through 2019. He said in the past that he would finance the planned left-wing policies through higher income taxes and the introduction of a wealth tax and an inheritance tax for any inheritance over one million euro.
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Photograph by Wikipedia user Manuelvbotelho of António Luís Santos da Costa (*1961 in Lisbon).
Article added on November 26, 2015 at 15:02 CET.
