Pedro Passos Coelho

Early years

Education

Political career

Early career

Prime minister of Portugal

Overview

XIX Constitutional Government

Major policies

• Public servants: the government wanted to sharply reduce the number of public servants and to achieve this, it created a special mechanism to cut jobs by mutual agreement. Due to the unsustainable and growing expenses with public servant salaries and privileges, the ruling party PSD said it would only hire one worker for each five that leave, a rule which revealed the extremely large number of unnecessary, redundant public servants that had been signed in across the decades. Hiring procedures for the public service were changed to guarantee an independent process, and public servants' wages were taken into account to limit extra payments. On 18 October 2011, the Portuguese Minister of Finance, Vítor Gaspar, said to the Portuguese television RTP 1 that the wage cuts imposed on public servants the previous week in the presentation of the State Budget for 2012 were the only way to avoid a much more painful and complex policy of public servant mass firing. He said that if wage cuts were not enforced, it would be necessary to get rid of about 100,000 public servants immediately. In November 2015, the Socialist Party announced it would terminate with Passos Coelho-era reassignment program for public sector employees which included planned job cuts, called Mobilidade Especial, later Requalificação.
• Public administration: since the beginning, the government promised to disclose within 90 days the list of public entities which were to be eliminated, reintegrated into other public institutions or privatised due to their uselessness. These included dozens of financially strapped public institutions, foundations and public companies at a local, regional and national level, which were considered ineffective and futile and prone to overspending and overstaffing.
• Taxes: tax rise. Higher indirect taxes, like VAT, for almost all goods and services.
• Labour: Labour laws were also altered, but most of the changes could not affect current workers due to the leftist, labor movement-inspired Portuguese Constitution of 1976 and its Court, only those starting a new job from there on, while some public holidays were moved from mid-week to Mondays or Fridays to avoid typical extra-long bank holiday weekends. Faced with growing unemployment and hoping to avoid greater public unrest, the government cut the time needed to qualify for unemployment benefits from 15 to 12 months, but reduced the benefit period from 30 to 18 months and created new rules which reduced the monthly unemployment benefit granted to each unemployed citizen.
• Privatisations: release of state ownership on the utility Energias de Portugal, the grid management company REN – Redes Energéticas Nacionais, the financial institution Banco Português de Negócios and the flag carrier TAP Air Portugal by the end of 2011. The insurance company of the public bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos was also for sale. Revenue from the sale of other parts of CGD was to be used to beef up the bank's capital ratios and its ability to lend to companies. Besides this, the government kept the promise to withdraw its special rights in companies such as Portugal Telecom.
• Finance: The creation of a development bank was defined as a priority by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho in the parliamentary debate that began the activities of the remodeled XIX Constitutional Government of Portugal's cabinet on July 24, 2013, an installation commission was soon created that allowed the Council of Ministers, in October 2014, to formalize the creation of the Financial Development Institution which was the percursor of the Banco Português de Fomento. Portugal Ventures, a state-run venture capital and private equity organisation which would later become part of the Banco Português de Fomento group, was also founded in 2012 by Passos Coelho's cabinet.
• Transports: the Lisbon-Madrid high-speed rail line was put on hold. The decision was taken bearing in mind the cost-cutting measures and the contracts that had already been signed. Transport providers like the Lisbon and Porto bus companies and subway systems were also assessed to see if and when they could be sold off. The government programme also added that the road and rail transport companies, like Comboios de Portugal, "urgently need" to solve their chronic operating deficits and growing debts. On 8 December 2011, tolls were introduced on four shadow toll highways and in 2012, more than 300 km of railways were closed.
• Regulators: the regulatory bodies were turned into independent authorities with their officials being chosen through a process which comprises the government, the parliament and the presidency.
• Media: the media company owned by public broadcasting corporation RTP was to be restructured as early as 2012 to halt costs, and the privatisation of one of the two TV channels it owns was also on the table. Lusa news agency was also to be reorganised, following the state's goal of rethinking its position in regard to the national media.
• Monitoring measures: the government created a special unit to monitor the measures agreed with the so-called international European [sovereign debt crisis#Austerity and loan agreement|troika] composed by the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank. This special unit was subordinated to Carlos Moedas, the deputy secretary of state of Prime Minister Passos Coelho.
• Health: Public hospitals were turned over to private management "whenever this is more efficient, maintaining the essentially free health care services". The fees and taxes a citizen had to pay to use the national health service were substantially increased.
• Foreign affairs: Passos Coelho's cabinet enforced international relations policies directed towards increased economic relations with Portuguese-speaking countries like Angola and Brazil, as well as openly supporting the creation of an economic and fiscal government for the European Union. The government also supported a State-backed emigration policy to help unemployed and underemployed citizens who wish to flee rampant poverty and social regression, to find a job in foreign countries. On the other hand, the government created programs that issued residence permits to wealthy foreign investors, entrepreneurs and skilled workers in high demand.
• Social integration: In 2013, the XIX Constitutional Government of Portugal, led then by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, passed the National Strategy for the Integration of the Romani Communities, creating a Consultative Group for the Integration of the Portuguese Gypsy Communities.

Criticism

Honours

• Grand-Cross of the Order of Merit, Poland
• Grand-Cross with diamonds of the Order of the Sun, Peru
• Sash of Special Category of the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico

  Electoral history

Amadora City Council election, 1997

PSD leadership election, 2008

PSD leadership election, 2010

Legislative election, 2011

Legislative election, 2015

Personal life