Anibal Cavaco Silva
Aníbal Cavaco Silva, born on 15 July 1939, in Boliqueime, Loulé (Algarve), is the 19th President of the Portuguese Republic. President Aníbal Cavaco Silva achieved two absolute majorities in legislative elections and exercised office as Prime Minister between 1985 and 1995. He was proactive in the process of European construction, ensuring a central role in several great decisions, influencing the options written into the Maastricht Treaties and guaranteeing the accesion of the escudo to the European Monetary System, creating the conditions for the inclusion of Portugal in the first group of countries which adopted the single European currency. On 7 September 1995, when Aníbal Cavaco Silva was in office as Prime Minister, he was distinguished in Germany with the Carl Bertelsmann Prize that the Bertelsmann Foundation decided to award Portugal for its success in the improvement of the labour market and in the fight against unemployment. President Cavaco Silva was awrded honorary degrees by the University of York (United Kingdom), La Coruña (Spain), Goa (India), León (Spain) and Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh, Scotland), and is a member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of Spain, of the Madrid Club for Democratic Transition and Consolidation and of the Global Leadership Foundation.
