Maria João Rodrigues
Maria João Rodrigues is a Portuguese academic and politician who served as Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of the Group of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) from 2014 until 2019. Since 2017 she is also President of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), succeeding Italian politician Massimo d'Alema. Her political career began as Minister of Employment of Portugal in the first government of Prime Minister António Guterres (1995–1997) and she was policy maker working in several posts in the European Institutions since 2000, notably in the leading teams of EU Council Presidencies. She  is an expert on EU political economy and has notably served as Special Advisor to a number of elected representatives at both Portuguese and EU level, in particular to former Prime Minister António Guterres, the current Secretary General of United Nations, to several European Commissioners and to the former President of the Party of European Socialists Poul Nyrup Rasmussen). She is known as the "mother of the Lisbon Strategy" since this is one of her main outcomes. She had also a prominent roles in the development of: the EU2020 Strategy (the follow up of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and  Jobs); the EU Declaration on Globalization adopted by the European Council (2007); strategic partnerships with USA, China, India, Russia, South Africa and Brazil (2007-2012); the new phase of the Erasmus Programme (2008); the priorities for the European regional development policy (2005–07); the responses to the Euro-zone crisis (2008–13); the EP Strategic Resolutions on the European Commission Annual Work Programme (2015-2017); and, more recently, the European Pillar of Social Rights (2017). In 2014, Rodrigues was elected Member of the European Parliament, integrating the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) - the second most important EP  Group, with 190 members coming from the 28 Member States -, which elected her in 2014 as Vice-president. As S&D Vice-President, she is in charge of general coordination and interface with the other EU institutions and member of the Committees of Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) and Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON). In academic terms, Rodrigues was professor of European economic policies in the European Studies Institute – Université libre de Bruxelles and in the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE). She was also the chair of the European Commission Advisory Board for socio-economic sciences. She is author of more  than one hundred publications, notably the books. Education. Rodrigues holds three master's degrees and a PhD in economics from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne as well as a Degree in Sociology from the University Institute of Lisbon. Political career. Career in national politics. A Professor of Economics at the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) since 1987, Maria João Rodrigues started her career in public affairs in 1993 as a consultant in the Ministry of Employment and Social Security, then headed by José Falcão e Cunha in the conservative government of Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva. Following  the victory of the Socialist Party in the 1995 general elections, she was appointed Minister for Employment and Training by Prime Minister António Guterres, on 28 October 1995. She attained a strategic agreement with social partners to prepare Portugal membership to the Eurozone(1997), completed a major reform in the management of the European Social Fund and held this office until 25 November 1997. The Lisbon Strategy. After her role of Minister of Employment, Rodrigues was appointed by Prime Minister António Guterres special advisor and Head of the Prime Minister's Forward Studies Unit in 1998. In this capacity, she played  a dramatic role during the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, in the first semester of 2000. The Portuguese Presidency notably succeeded in securing a compromise on the so-called Lisbon Strategy, a comprehensive plan that was aimed at boosting growth, competitiveness and employment level in the EU building on innovation. The strategy was adopted at an extraordinary European Council meeting in Lisbon in March 2000, a meeting in which Maria João Rodrigues acted as a sherpa for the Prime Minister. She notably contributed to build a compromise between the delegations of the British and French governments, by resorting to  the open "method of coordination". Maria João Rodrigues continued to monitor closely the developments of the Lisbon Strategy, in particular as Special Advisor to the Luxembourg Presidency of the European Union for the Mid-term Review of the Lisbon Strategy (2005) and special advisor to the European Commission and Jean-Claude Juncker on the Lisbon strategy. Looking back on this experience in 2010, Rodrigues wrote "Even if there were clear failures, the implementation of the Lisbon strategy should not be considered a failure.". The Lisbon strategy is largely considered to have failures but also some achievements. In 2007, the EU  average GR was 2.7% and 16 million jobs have been created. Most of all, it changed the governance of the European Union with higher coordination of economic and social policies, involving around 400 measures. In 2007, Rodrigues was appointed by Prime Minister José Socrates as special advisor for the European Union Council Presidency dealing with the Lisbon Treaty, the Lisbon strategy and EU Summits with international partners China, India, Brazil, Russia and Africa. This mission, which achieved the negotiation of the Lisbon Treaty, came to end on 1 January 2008, when the rotating presidency of the European Union was handed  to Slovenia. Rodrigues has also started a process of "Dialogues for Sustainable Development" with these international partners, sponsored by Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2010, the Lisbon Strategy was succeeded by the Europe 2020 strategy, a new EU plan for "smart, sustainable and inclusive economic growth". Although not acting in any official capacity anymore, Rodrigues' previous experiences with the Lisbon strategy meant that her viewpoint on the Europe 2020 was highly valued all across the political spectrum and in many European capitals. Until 2014, Rodrigues was also a Professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles and the University of Lisbon. Member of  the European Parliament, 2014–2019. In the 2014 European elections, Rodrigues became a Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group, the second most important parliamentary group, along with other nine MEPs. . She also joined the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. In December 2015 Rodrigues was one of the candidates for the Portuguese Council of State (an advisory council to the President of the Republic) in the list put forward by the left-wing parties in the Portuguese parliament, as substitute member. Also in 2015, Rodrigues led the S&D Group in the  European Parliament to adopt detailed positions on the Greek government-debt crisis and on the reform of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union. She was then appointed to chair this debate with the Social Democratic leaders in Europe. In 2017, she obtained a large majority of five political groups in the European Parliament to back her report on "The European Pillar of Social Rights" and was appointed to the final negotiations; it was proclaimed in the Gothenburg Summit on 17 November 2017. Political positions. Rodrigues has also been developing a policy response to the Eurozone crisis, notably  with respect to the European Financial Stability Facility and the economic governance of the European Union. In October 2010, she published in European current affairs online newspaper "EurActiv" a "short theatre piece" summing up her thoughts on the issue of European Economic Governance, and several other policy papers, reports and books followed. In December 2011, Rodrigues argued for the use of a "big bazooka" to address the eurozone crisis, in the form of a large scale government debt purchase by the European Central Bank.