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Carlos Manuel Martins do Vale César

Nº OF MEETING: XIII

YEAR OF 2010

Carlos Manuel Martins do Vale César was born in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel Island, Azores, on October 30, 1956 and completed primary and secondary education in his hometown. When he was still quite young, while attending the Antero de Quental Secondary School, he was a member of the Cultural Cooperative SEXTANTE from the island of São Miguel, which stood out in the organization ofcivic actions opposing the dictatorial regime of Salazar and Marcelo Caetano that ordered its shut down at the hands of the political police PIDE / DGS. His inclination for politics is rooted in a family tradition that led, among others, his great-uncle Manuel Augusto César to have an active participation in the Socialist Party and in labor movement of the First Republic, being at the time theeditor of newspapers such as “O Proletário,” weekly newspaper of the Workers Federation, “Protesto,” official publication of the Antero de QuentalSocialist Centre, and the “Protesto do Povo,” a socialist biweekly published in Ponta Delgada.

His civic education in the years immediately prior to the April 25, 1974 Revolution is deeply connected to the influence of his brother Horácio do Vale César, a journalist, and of other leading figures from thestudent and opposition circlesof the time in Ponta Delgada, such as Jaime Gama, Mário Mesquitaand Medeiros Ferreira, all of them students at the Antero Quental Secondary School. In 1973, at the age of 17, he joined the Promotion Commission of the CDE [opposition] in Ponta Delgada. On April 26, 1974, a day after the “Carnation Revolution,” which restored freedom to the Portuguese people, he founded the Student Association of the Antero de Quental Secondary School and, a month later, the Socialist Youth of the Azores.

He was a member of the first elected Secretariat of the Ponta Delgada Section of the Socialist Party and of the delegation of the Azores to the 1stNational Congress of the Socialist Party, as a legally establishedparty, and to the 1st Socialist Youth Congress. In 1977, he became a student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, being a member of the Board of the Student Association and of the management bodies of that university. Until 1980, he was also the National Coordinator for Higher Education of the Socialist Youth. He was part of the Organizing Committee of the first commemorations of the Students’ Day in Portugal after the April 25Revolution and one of the founders of the National Union of Portuguese Students.

In Lisbon, he also worked as an employee and coordinator of a Cooperative of Documentation and Culture. Over the years, hewas always a national official of the Socialist Youth, a member of its National Committee and later of its National Executive Secretariat. He was an advisorto the State Secretary of Public Administration of the 2nd Constitutional Government.

Back in the Azores, hebecame an MP at the Regional Assembly in December 1980 and a memberof the executive board of the Parliamentary Group of the Socialist Party and of various committees, chairing the Committee on Economic Affairs. He was Vice-president of the Regional Assembly.

From 1983 to 1985, he was the leader of the Socialist Party in the Azores. Between December 1988 and December 1989, hewas an MP at the National Parliament to which he was elected in July 1987.
On 30 October, 1994, he was elected president of the Socialist Party of the Azores, with 92% of votes cast in a secret ballot during the Regional Congress. In the following year, hewas elected to the National Secretariat, which he was part of until 2012, after already being a member of the National Committee and of the National Policy Committee of the Socialist Party.

He gave several talksat symposia and conferences in the Azores, in other parts of the country and abroad; there are thousands of transcripts of his political speeches and he has a long and extensive collaboration in the regional press and was even a regular political commentator on RTP/Açores.

On November 9,1996, he was sworn in as President of the VII Regional Government of Azores. In the regional elections of October 15,2000, hewas reelected.On October 17, 2004, he once again led the Socialist Party to an election victory for the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Azores.

He was a member of the State Council, the High Council for National Defense, the High Council for Homeland Security and the High Council for Civil Protection. He was the President of the Conference of Presidents of the Outermost Regions and the Vice-president of the Bureau of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union. At the Committee of the Regions, he waspart of the Commissions of Natural Resources (NAT) and the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX).He was also a member of the Political Bureau of the Assembly of European Regions, the President of the Island Committee of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe, as well asthe President of Eurodysseefor several years. He was also part of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and of other internationalentities. Carlos César has always stood out for his defense of the Portuguese maritime and Atlantic vocation and of the special bilateral relationship with the American continent and, in particular, with the United States.