Francisco Lucas Pires

Francisco Lucas Pires   (politician, academic)
Born	19 October 1944 Coimbra, Portugal
Died	22 May 1998 (Age 53) Pombal, Portugal
Cause of death	heart attack
Nationality	Portuguese
Alma mater	University of Coimbra
Children	Jacinto Lucas Pires
Spouse	Maria Teresa Bahia de Almeida Garrett
Member of	Forum Portugal Global
Party	CDS – People's Party, Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
Portuguese pro-European Union politician who attended Bilderberg/1988  Member of the European Parliament for Portugal In office 1987 - Present  Portugal/Minister/Culture  In office 1982 - 1983

Francisco António Lucas Pires was a Portuguese academic, lawyer and politician.

Academic career

He graduated in law, at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra in 1966. Opting for an academic career, he began, soon after, the complementary course of Political-Economic Sciences, finished in 1968, with a monograph on Constitutional Law.

Years later, Lucas Pires would pursue doctoral studies, again in the field of legal-political sciences, more precisely, in the discipline of Constitutional Law. With a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, he did research in Germany, together with Otto Bachof. In 1989 he defended his thesis, entitled "Theory of the 1976 constitution: the dualist transition".

He was assistant and later professor at the Faculty of Law of Coimbra. He also taught at the Regional Center of Porto of the Portuguese Catholic University. He was director of the Law Department of the Autonomous University of Lisbon.

Political activity

In the 1960s, Francisco Lucas Pires integrated the revolutionary nationalist wing among the students of the University of Coimbra, having joined the conservative Christian-democratic CDS in the year of its foundation. After the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974, Lucas Pires was a prominent activist, having been a deputy to the Assembly of the Republic, elected in the legislatures of 1976, 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1985.

Having been one of the first Portuguese politicians of the post-revolution to affirm himself as right-wing and liberal, Francisco Lucas Pires defended that man should be placed above the state, man as a primordial and essential political unit, not only limit but center of organization and political decision, in which it is the state that must be "humanized" and not the man to be "statualized".

Minister of Culture and scientific coordination

He assumed the responsibility of General Coordinator of this structure resulting from the coalition government from 1979 to 1980. He was Minister of Culture and scientific coordination between 1982 and 1983, under Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemão.

Leadership of the CDS

Between February 1983 and October 1985 Lucas Pires led the Christian-democratic CDS, having left the presidency of that party due to the weak results obtained in the legislative elections of October 1985.

He was a member of the Council of State from 1983 to 1985.

Later career

In 1991 he broke with his party, disagreeing with the position of Manuel Monteiro's leadership in relation to the European Union. Lucas Pires was, at the time, a member of the European Parliament, elected in 1987. He remained in Parliament as an independent MP. In the following elections to the European Parliament, in 1994, Lucas Pires joined the lists of the (conservative) Social Democratic Party.

He was the first Portuguese vice-president of the European Parliament from 1987 to 1988 (and again in 1998), coordinated the EPP Parliamentary Group and was the first vice-president of the European Christian-Democratic Foundation for cooperation. He was also a member of the permanent group on the European Constitution of the University of South Bank, in London, of the curator of the Centre for Luso-Galician studies of the University of Trier, in Germany, and of the Board of Directors of the Pegasus Foundation, based in Brussels.

He published several books on legal and political issues, including constitutional issues and European Union issues.

He married Maria Teresa Bahia de Almeida Garrett, great-niece of the viscount of Almeida Garrett. He was the father of four children, among them the writer Jacinto Lucas Pires.

He died while traveling from Lisbon to Coimbra, of sudden cardiovascular disease.

Tributes

On 9 June 1998, he was posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Military Order of our Lord Jesus Christ, with his eldest son, Jacinto Lucas Pires receiving the decoration on his behalf. In that same ceremony, the then President of the Republic Jorge Sampaio pointed out that "Lucas Pires knew, like few others, how to bring Europe to us, the Europe of every day, of identities and cultures, of advances and setbacks, the Europe of values and of the project, in short, if we wish, the Europe of the founders, that of a community of destiny, one that combines diverse identities with the sharing of common values that are today without any imposition, the heritage of humanity".

On February 5, 1999, he was also honored with the Robert Schuman medal. In 2009, a reading room in the library of the European Parliament was named in his honor.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1988	3 June 1988	5 June 1988	Austria Interalpen-Hotel Telfs-Buchen	The 36th meeting, 114 participants

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References

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