Entretien avec Amadeu Lopes SABINO

Coordonnateur du projet : Université catholique de Louvain (UCL, Louvain-la-Neuve), dans le cadre d’un financement de la Commission européenne.

HISTCOM.2 Histoire interne de la Commission européenne 1973-1986

Entretien avec Amadeu Lopes SABINO

par Sigfrido RAMIREZ

à Lisbonne le 11 avril 2012

Transcription révisée par AMADEU LOPES SABINO

236 HistCom.2 « Histoire interne de la Commission européenne 1973-1986 »

Entretien avec Amadeu Lopes SABINO (11.04.2012)

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ALS: Amadeu Lopes Sabino

SR: Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez

SR: Today is Wednesday April 11th 2012 and I am at the Hotel George V in Lisbon,

conducting an interview of Amadeu Lopes -Sabino. Mr Lopes-Sabino is a Portuguese national

and a former European civil servant. Specifically, Mr Lopes-Sabino served in the Council of

the European Union during the period relevant to the HistCom II project: History of the

European Commission between 1973 and 1986. Mr. Lopes Sabino, the first part of the

interview is dealing with your career. You sent us a small CV, in which we can see how your

career evolved before coming to the European Community. So part of the project is also to

ask you which part of your biography brought you to serve the European Communities. For

that purpose we could maybe clarify some points which are in the CV. In particular you said

you studied Law at the University of Lisbon until 1967. And that you also worked as a

lawyer, something which is very much related to the fact that you served afterwards in the

Legal Service of the Council of the EU. So, could you tell us more about this period of your

career, of your training in your early years, of your University training? Were you already

somehow influenced by what were the European Communities of the time? Was this already

an issue which was taught at the University of Lisbon in your studies?

ALS: Not at all!

SR: Could you tell us more? You also worked as a University assistant.

ALS: That was a bit later on.

SR: Can you remember that period of your life?

ALS: Let me begin with the story of my youth. I studied Law at the University of Lisbon

between 1961 and 1967. At that time, there were only two law schools in the country, one in

Lisbon and the other one in Coimbra. During the Portuguese dictatorship – which lasted until

1974 – European Law was not taught at all in Portugal's law schools. The existence and the

very concept of Community Law during the “Estado Novo” was totally absent from

universities. European Institutions were mentioned in courses on international law, in which



the Community was treated like any other international organizations. But, European law was

never taught as a different and specific matter.

Portugal was very far from Europe at that time. We were not only an old and isolated

dictatorship but the most ancient and the last empire in Europe. The main problems for the

Portuguese regime were the colonies and the colonial wars, which started in 1961, just as I

was beginning my graduate studies. The European approach of the most active members of

the student movements, and I became one of them, was in a total contradiction with the

regime. There were opposition politicians and students with democratic ideals and even with

links with other European parties and movements, but they were regarded as a sort of alien. I

was myself a leader of the student movement and I had links with European student

movements since 1966. As you know, in the 1960s most of the European student movements

were against the Vietnam War, and I took an active participation in meetings and

demonstrations in Portugal, where they were illegal, and abroad.

While my political and cultural generation had links with Europe, but they were non official

links. Our contacts with the Institutions of the European Communities were of course

nonexistent. We were already a European generation, before Portugal becoming a member of

the European Community, but, a “clandestine” European generation, so to say. Our concept of

Europe, the concept of what existed after the Pyrenees − Spain was not Europe for us − was,

in a way, superficial. For us Europe was a reality, but a cultural reality, not a political one. We

were Francophile and francophone, we knew everything about France, its politics and its

culture, we waited anxiously for French newspapers and books, hoping the censorship would

not prohibit them. France was our door to Europe. Europe was a reality that existed in our

minds and in our future, a reality thought and dreamt with the help of Sartre, Camus and

Vailland, against the conceptions of a regime that considered Portugal an imperial and a non-

European country.

In parallel to our fascination with France, our worst problem was the colonial question. In the

1960s, for a young Portuguese man, the perspective was four years in the army and the

overseas wars. The movements against the Vietnam War also represented our disapproval of

Portuguese colonial wars in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. As a student and after

my graduation, I began writing in the newspapers. I became a writer for a daily newspaper,

Diário de Lisboa, and an editor of O Tempo e o Modo, an opposition magazine, with a



Christian-democratic orientation, within the little margin of opposition tolerated by the

censorship and the political police. The question was whether to write or not to write. I dared

to write, and after many conflicts with the censorship, I spent nine months in jail, accused of

subversive association. Once freed, I was sent to the army in a disciplinary regime – a

punishment reserved for those the regime regarded as the most dangerous elements of society.

In 1973, I deserted. I went to Sweden, where I lived for two and half years. At the University

of Lund I began a post-graduation in Sociology of Law.

When I returned to Portugal in mid-1975, after the revolution, I began working as a lawyer

and an assistant at the Faculty of Economics, at the Technical University of Lisbon, where I

taught Law and Political Science. We, the Portuguese who had lived in exile and returned to

Portugal after the revolution, had a precise idea of what Europe meant: democracy, civil

liberties and rights. Even the extreme left, the Maoist movements – I was a Maoist militant

between 1967 and 1976 − accepted, after years of utopia, that the only people´s democracy is

democracy without adjectives, as it existed in Western countries.

In a way my background was very common among men of my generation in Europe. After

the restoration of democracy, the political integration of Europe was for us the normal way to

approach Europe. It became a “natural” approach. When I came back to Portugal in 1975 I

started post-graduate studies at the University of Coimbra in Company Law and Political

Science with a professor who was already conquered by the European Community ideal,

Professor Orlando de Carvalho. We used to come to Coimbra the weekends, to have classes

with him, me and four colleagues who taught at the Faculty of Economics. With him and

others university professors, Community Law entered the heart of Portuguese Law. All the

country was already accepting the idea that Europe was the destiny for Portugal. The frontier

between democratic and non-democratic parties was then precisely defined by the debates

concerning the Portuguese accession to the European Communities. Non democratic parties

were then, and they remain, against joining. They considered Portugal a people outside

capitalist Europe, a kind of island between Europe, Africa and South America. The rejection

of this vision shared by the extreme right and the communists was in the end of the 1970s,

and still is, the definition of the democratic path of Portugal.

SR: So, your first contact with European affairs was established in Coimbra?



ALS: No, of course not. As a lawyer I was already in contact with Community affairs and

legislation. In Lund I had studied the European Institutions. But it was with Professor Orlando

de Carvalho that I began studying European Law systematically.

SR: You mentioned the European Movement. Was there anybody in particular who you were

in contact with in the early 1960s? For the Spaniards at least we know there were some

important people.

ALS: I mentioned “European movements”, not the European Movement. In the review I

mentioned, O Tempo e o Modo, we had close contacts in Spain with Cuadernos para el

Diálogo. In 1969, we had a meeting of the two redactions. We were received in Madrid by the

master of the house…

SR: Someone with a Christian-Democratic background?

ALS: Yes. A left-wing Christian-democrat.

SR: Joaquín Ruiz Jiménez?

ALS: Yes. He was no longer the director, but he was the patriarch. The meeting took place at

the siege of the review at calle Jarama. I remember the name of several redactors and

collaborators present: Pedro Altares, Felix Santos, Aguilar Navarro, Oscar Alzaga, Sartorius...

And some members of the group Tacito. At the end of the meeting, we went with Pedro Lain

Entralgo to Dionisio Ridruejo´s apartment. He was a reference, someone who had fought

against the two types of totalitarism − fascism and communism − and had kept, in troubled

times, the capacity to dream with open wide eyes. It was a very exciting moment for me, a 26

years old young man.

In France my contacts were with UNEF (Union Nationale des Étudiants de France). In

January 1968, I travelled to Dublin and Paris to prepare with other leaders of the student

syndicalism movement a European demonstration against imperialism and racism, so to say

against the American war in Vietnam and the Portuguese wars in Africa. We had a



preparatory meeting in Nanterre at which Sauvageot and, briefly, Cohn-Bendit were present.

The European demonstration took place the 21st February in several cities: Berlin, Paris,

London, Barcelona and Lisbon. In Lisbon it was received with the banal brutality of the

regime. Later, as a leftist lawyer I had contacts with Italian lawyers close to Lotta Continua,

Avanguardia Operaia, . In May Centro Informazioni e Difesa Contro la Giustizia Militare

1975, in Milan, I presented a communication to the congress Ordine Pubblico e Criminalità

on the relations between the Portuguese revolution and the Law. The text is published in my

book Portugal é demasiado pequeno, Coimbra, 1976. The themes concerning what was called

“ l´altro diritto” were then the object of the studies of many Italian colleagues1.

SR: Do you remember any name?

ALS: Tonino Civitelli, Amalia Crugnola, Giuliano Spazzali…

SR: Just to reconstruct because it is quite original…

ALS: Time goes by very fast… In 1976, the socialist government introduced the candidature

of Portugal to the European Communities. I was a member of a group intending to ask for a

referendum on the accession. It was an informal group. I was one of the members, with,

among others, Mr. Castro Mendes, who is now an ambassador, and Mr. Almeida Fernandes, a

journalist. Nowadays I am totally against any kind of referendum, as they immediately

become plebiscites. Recent times as shown that referenda are instruments of demagogy, not of

democracy.

SR: A group intending to ask for a referendum, you said. Civil society ideologically

transversal?

ALS: Yes, we were not members of any party. I was a political militant just after the

revolution. But only for two years. I have had no political affiliation nor sympathy since 1976.

I vote for one party or for another. Since the 1980s, I have only chosen parties and candidates

who are firmly pro-European. Until now I have only openly supported candidates to the

1 Passage retravaillé par le témoin lors de la révision.



Presidency, such as Cavaco Silva, the current President, whose political commission I was a

member of in the last election.

SR: Coming back to your youth. I thought it was quite an original idea to have youth links

with the European movements.

ALS: Leftist! But it was common during the 1960s and the 1970s.

SR: You are particularly talking about leftists, but who are coming from Christian-Democrat

past.

ALS: This situation was specific to two dictatorships with a Catholic inspiration. It has been a

common evolution in Portugal and Spain. O Tempo e o Modo began with a Christian-

Democrat trend and approached the left and the extreme left. As it was possible, of course, in

the limits of the censorship. The same happened with Cuadernos para el Diálogo. My route

to Europe was done through this heterodox map.

SR: Not through your family somehow?

ALS: No. My family was a typical middle-class family without European contacts.

SR: Without international contacts?

ALS: International, yes! But not precisely European! With Africa, with Morocco, where my

father had economic interests. We used to travel to Morocco, and to Spain. My family lived in

Morocco for several years and I used to spend my holidays there. In a way, Spain was also my

country. I consider myself half-Spaniard. We had relatives in Spain, in Badajoz. But Spain at

that time was also isolated, albeit not as much as Portugal I have to say. I travelled to Spain to

buy books which were still banned in Portugal. In Spain, the censorship was much more

liberal. More and more. Even in the cinema. We could see many movies in Spain which could

not be shown in Portugal. During my youth, I used to travel in France and Italy, hitch-hiking.

It was also typical of my generation, hitch-hiking. My generation was the first European



generation in Portugal. Students, intellectuals, economic and political emigrants. Workers.

Clandestine travelers. Deserters. Hitch-hikers.

SR: It was the 1968 generation. You have mentioned the best known representative, Cohn-

Bendit, who more or less is one of the symbols of that generation. You were involved in the

Sociology of Law, relationship between Law and…

ALS: In Lund I studied European Law. But only the institutional aspects of European

integration. In the 1970s, Sweden was not very keen on the European integration either. I

studied European Law further as a lawyer, not so much as a student. And later in my post-

graduate studies in Coimbra.

SR: Was there any other professors before who may have influenced you?

ALS: My teachers of History and French at the secondary school. Two open-minded persons,

both cultured, who used to criticize the regime. I could also mention two professors at the

Faculty of Law, who had a certain influence on my formation. First of all, the future first

Prime Minister after the revolution: Professor Palma Carlos. He was a man who used to say:

“Amadeu, your generation will be in contact with Europe, which is something which is being

born, and will later become he heart of our political life”. I was the president of the students

of the Faculty of Law and he was the director of the Faculty, so we had close contacts. There

was another professor, Professor Dias Marques, who was discretely democratic and pro-

European. Discretely, I insist. Openly, it would have been impossible. The regime's official

line was not only that Portugal was not a European country, but that it would become less and

less European...

SR: So, you arrived to the point where you come back from Sweden and you start again at the

University in 1980. What did you do between 1980 and 1984, when you entered the Legal

Service of the Council?

ALS: I came back from Sweden in 1975. It was the political euphoria after the revolution. It

was a very creative and interesting period. Nevertheless, now I use to tell my son and

daughter that even if revolutions are very interesting periods, I do not want to live another one



in my life. When the revolution finished, I wanted to leave Portugal again! It was not easy to

live in Portugal after the revolution. Mediocrity and nationalism were coming back through

the left door. So, with the first entrance exams for the European Communities for Portuguese

and Spaniards, I immediately presented my candidature and became jurist linguist in the

Legal Service of the Council in the end of 1983. At that time, I had no doubts that the future

of my country - and mine - were in the European Community.

SR: In 1983?

ALS: Yes, in 1983. I started on the 1st of January 1984. There were entrance exams even

before the accession, but only for jurist linguists and translators. The accession treaty had to

be produced in all the relevant languages, so I worked on the Portuguese version of the treaty.

When I joined I got a six-month contract, which was renewed until the new selection process

for the Legal Service in 1985, just after the accession. I was selected once again and became a

legal adviser. Even if in 1983 negotiations were almost stopped, the Council and the

Commission were recruiting.

SR: You started in the Commission?

ALS: No. But already in 1982 the Commission had made a selection of Portuguese and

Spaniards.

SR: Do you remember any name?

ALS: One of my brothers was selected: Luis Filipe Sabino, who remained in the Commission

until 1994.

SR: So, it was the Council who made the public competition?

ALS: The Council made an open call for applicants. I applied and I got the position. My job

related to the Portuguese version of the treaty of accession. It was being negotiated and we

had almost two years to prepare the final text to be adopted in 1985. Not only the Treaty of

Accession, but all the Community Law (Acquis Communitaire (AC)), everything had to be



translated. With a colleague, Mrs. Lopes Cardoso, and two Spanish colleagues, Ramos Ruano

and Josep Camplonch, we produced the Portuguese and Spanish versions of the Treaty. The

final version was adopted the day of the accession, as was the Acquis Communautaire. The

work was interesting but overwhelming. We had the support of Portuguese and Spanish

authorities. One thing that struck me during the negotiations was that Portuguese legislation

was very far from the European legislation. Conversely, Spain had been preparing for

accession, even during Franquism. This was a major difference between the two countries.

SR: Maybe the transition was also very different and for the preparation of the AC it is true

that from 1977 Calvo Sotelo, Secretary of State for European Affairs, was already preparing

the internal legislation to be adapted.

ALS: The Spanish internal legislation was very close to the AC. Our was very far from it. It

was very hard work, but very interesting, with close contact with Portuguese ministries, most

of all with the State Secretariat for European Affairs, with the Comissão para a Integração

Europeia, and with the Cabinet for the European Law, whose director was Mr. Moitinho de

Almeida, later the first Portuguese judge at the Court. We also worked, later, with the State

Secretary Vitor Martins. A very competent politician, which, in Portugal, is almost always a

contraditio in terminis.

SR: Secretary of State for European Affairs?

ALS: Yes. He was the best Secretary of State for European Affairs we ever had. The

government of Cavaco Silva was the only one who really understood what European

integration was. The others regarded European integration as a question for the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs. It is not. It is for the Prime Minister assisted by a minister/secretary of State

with horizontal competencies.

SR: So you entered as an auxiliary agent at that time?

ALS: Yes, and I became an official in 1985, just after the accession.



SR: Do you remember in this period the Portuguese officials who arrived at the time in the

different Institutions? Do you have contact with the new people coming through social

networks like cultural clubs or literary clubs?

ALS: No. I was nearly the only one who arrived. Me and Mrs. Lopes Cardoso.

SR: So, you entered the Council in a period when there was all the period of enlargement

going on.

ALS: The President of the Commission, the face of Europe, was then Gaston Thorn. When I

hear now that we are in a crisis, that the Commission does not exist, I remember that time.

Everything is very relative…

SR: So you became official passing from being a Lawyer Linguist to Legal Advisor. And then

later on what was the evolution of your career within the Council?

ALS: I remained Legal Advisor until the moment I became Director in 2004.

SR: Were you member of a public service trade union?

ALS: Yes, I was affiliated just like everybody else, but not a militant.

SR: Union Syndicale?

ALS: No. I was a member of the staff committee.

SR: Were you involved in strikes or similar actions?

ALS: No.

SR: What were the circumstances of your departure? Did you retire?



ALS: I retired because the Union, that is always asking the states to postpone the age of

retirement, does not do it. So, at 65, they push us out, which is totally absurd.

SR: But did you remain in contact after your retirement …?

ALS: Yes, I was Mr Barroso’s advisor for the Lisbon Treaty – albeit not a civil servant.

SR: And contacts with former colleagues in informal circles? For example the Association of

Retired Civil Servants.

ALS: No, I am not a retired person. I was forced to retire. I use to say that I am an

unemployed person. Well, the Portuguese officials have a club: the Portuguese Club of

Benelux, a kind of “Rotary”. And there is a Portuguese bookshop, Orfeu, rue du Taciturne, a

cultural meeting point where I have made presentations of my books. So, I keep my contacts

and my links. I go to Brussels very often. It is the only city where I lived for a long period, 25

years. I travel very often. I do not live in Lisbon but I stay in Lisbon, it is my seat.

SR: So, during your stay in Brussels did you belong to any other society concerned with

European issues?

ALS: I had been a political militant before the revolution and just after, but that is all for me.

It is over. I am not a member of groups or lobbies. In a certain way, I am a solitary person.

SR: This was more a standard question even if you confessed that you kept in contact with

this kind of “Rotary” Portuguese club.

ALS: And with many colleagues. I have friends who work for Barroso and in the Council.

And also people I met outside the Institutions. Belgians and others. I have always felt at home

in Brussels. My existence was never circumscribed to Square Schuman.

SR: During this time, did you write for a journal? Is this your exhaustive list about EU

questions?



ALS: There are more publications. As you can see, I wrote for several newspapers and other

publications.

SR: I will ask you later for your complete list.

ALS: I will send you all the texts.

SR: Do you have a particular view on what European integration means for you and what the

purpose of it is?

ALS: The idea of European integration is as old as Europe, in a certain sense we are not

creating anything new. Europe is a cultural space, whose language, as Umberto Eco says, is

the translation, a transnational language. It opens the minds to cosmopolitanism and to the

links between nations and states. Sometimes you have a tradition of free integration, as during

the Holy Empire, sometimes a forced integration imposed by one state, but that is always on

behalf of Europe, even with Napoleon. Europe has a real existence for Europeans. It is a

civilizational tradition. For the elites and for the peoples. But on the other side we have

another strong tradition: the nation state. So the idea of Europe is complex, a permanent

contradiction or tension between the nation and the transnational integration. You cannot

create Europe against the states, but what we have now is a situation where and when the

states cannot exist without Europe. It is wrong to say that Europe is becoming a bureaucratic

monster, more and more built against nation states. Nation states need Europe, they are

reinforced by Europe and the integration of the continent. This is the lesson of the last times.

No state can survive without the Union. And the Union cannot survive without the states. So,

the path to integration is difficult, sometimes tortuous. Now we are in the center of a crisis,

but Europe has always dealt with crises. I travel very often to Brazil because my companion is

Brazilian. I admire Brazil and its economic expansion, its young culture and social progress.

As an ex-Maoist, I can say I am proud of the new China and its performances. But when

someone says that Brazil, China, India are overtaking Europe, we have to keep this opinion in

context. We have a tradition of society, of quality of life, of culture, that cannot be annulated,

disintegrated, destroyed, even with a deep crisis as the present one. Even two world wars did

not destroy Europe. Europe is the Phoenix. It is able to come back to life from the ashes.



SR: In a way this is not a very much federalist thinking.

ALS: Federalism in Europe cannot be done without the nation states. We are building a

unique political system: a federation without a federal state. European Law is applied and

executed by national courts, by national administrations. You cannot build a federal

administration in parallel with the national one in two days. We do not need to build new

administrations as we already have the nationals. Ours is a very peculiar federal system, but it

has roots in our history. It is a federation, but without a central state. The European method of

integration is a post-state phenomenon. Don´t seek a precedent in the United States of

America, but in the Holy Empire.

SR: In a way there is not a finality/purpose in European integration as such. There is not a

teleological project in itself but just the way Member States are capable of fulfilling their

functions to their citizens.

ALS: In a certain way that is right, but states today have no teleological projects neither.

Except the old nationalism, which always flourishes during the crisis. We have to wait until

we can speak of something like a European patriotism. Time is the true sculptor of History.

SR: The citizenship is a construction built by nation states.

ALS: Patriotism also. And nationalism is one of the names of war. But citizenship built by

nation states is also a way to realize and protect civil rights and democracy. Today, Europe

also defends/protects civil rights and democracy. We do not currently need a European

patriotism. I am Portuguese and I am European, among many other things. I do not see any

contradiction, and I think that the common citizen does not see a contradiction between nation

and supranationality. We have too many local patriotisms to build a new one.

SR: Do you think that this conception that you have about European integration is dominant

in Portugal? Because you have reflected on that after having been in the Council…

ALS: I have been very close to the official culture of the Council, perhaps. But I think it is

more correct than the super federalism that sometimes exists within the Commission.



SR: Which are the main events during your time in the Institutions?

ALS: Our accession. It was a great joy to see the flags of Portugal and Spain beside the others

in Charlemagne. That was to me the most important day. Other days: the fall of the Berlin

Wall, and the fall of Communism. For me the fall of Communism is so important as the fall of

the dictatorship in Portugal. But also the steps forward given by the Treaty of Maastricht and

the Treaty of Lisbon, this one already in the middle of the mess we live in now. I worked very

close with the people negotiating the Treaty of Lisbon, during the Portuguese presidency in

2007.

SR: On enlargement, what do you think the impact of it was on the Community?

ALS: First of all, a change of paradigm. Until the 12 members we were very close. French

was the first language. English was second. French was the common language of the

Institutions. With the enlargement to the North of Europe (Sweden, Finland and Austria)

things began to change. I was a member of the jury whose task was to admit officials from

these countries. Before the EPSO, each institution had its own selection committees. And the

first time we admitted officials without knowing French was in 1995. They were Swedish.

Enlargement changed even many objectives, not only at the level of the Treaties, but also at

the level of practices: the idea of a closer union was slowed down. In a certain way the two

last enlargements were decisive to show the old members that there are other realities and that

the idea of a closer union is not the only way to deal with Europe. Now we have to be clear on

the objectives. Closer or not closer union? And in which fields? When Tony Blair became the

Prime Minister he promised the foundation of a new paradigm, but did nothing at all. As a

representative of the Secretary General of the Council before the Parliament I heard Tony

Blair interventions in reserved circles and his words were totally different from what he was

able to do afterwards. He never did or could do what he said. Britons are very often absent of

crucial debates. It is very easy to say that France and Germany are imposing their views.

Perhaps, but they have no concrete opposition.

SR: During this period, which personalities of European integration are standing out of the

norm according to you?



ALS: Of course Delors. But also Mitterrand and Kohl. The trio François Mitterrand-Helmut

Kohl-Jacques Delors was our golden tandem.

SR: And within the Institutions, among the civil servants, any particular personality?

ALS: A man, Jean-Claude Piris, with whom I worked. He has been the jurisconsult of the

Council for almost the same time as I was there. He had an important influence in the

redaction of the Treaties. He retired two years after me, and he is the most impressive person I

met in Brussels at the level of officials.

SR: He was from the Conseil d’Etat, I think.

ALS: Yes. I was not always in agreement with him, his methods were also Napoleonic -with

its positives and negatives- but he is a very creative jurist and he left a strong mark on

European Law.

SR: If you are interested, today at this moment he is giving a lecture presenting his new book

in the European University Institute. In the webpage you can see that he just released his new

book.

ALS: I received it. And I wrote an essay for his Liber Amicorum.

SR: Yes, we saw this in your CV. So, with Piris you worked very closely. Did you also meet

the person who was before him, a Frenchman?

ALS: Dewost.

SR: Who then became Legal Director of the Legal Service of the Commission?

ALS: Yes. I worked with him. He was the juristconsult of the Council before Piris.



SR: Place of residence, you said something. How did you manage to move? Did you buy your

accommodation or did you rent in Brussels?

ALS: I bought.

SR: Did you come alone, were you married, did you have children with you?

ALS: I came with my daughter. I was divorced. I married again and my son was born in

Brussels. My children went to European schools. My daughter came back to Portugal, while

my son has never lived in Portugal.

SR: Did they go to the Portuguese section?

ALS: Not, both went to the French section. And he is now finishing his Law degree in

London.

SR: But they are Portuguese?

ALS: They are Portuguese. They are Europeans.

SR: I do not know if you married a Portuguese wife or not.

ALS: I had two Portuguese wives. Successively, of course. I am Portuguese, not a polygam!

SR: There are some civil servants who marry spouses of other nationalities, and the European

school section is a choice…

ALS: I chose French, with English as second language for them. I was able to teach them

Portuguese language and culture myself.

SR: This is important to see how you integrate in the place, in the sense of social integration.

ALS: I was totally integrated in Brussels, which is still my city.



SR: About socialization within Institutions, you said you were member of this club of

Portuguese officials. Did it exist since the very beginning?

ALS: It was formed by me and others. It was relatively important.

SR: When was it founded?

ALS: At the end of the 1980s.

SR: Did you organize debates?

ALS: Conferences. In one of the first ones we had Emile Noël. Karel van Miert later, and

other commissioners. Many Portuguese ministers and intellectuals. Barroso also came.

SR: Do you remember the other persons who founded this club with you?

ALS: Its president, who is a member of Barroso’s cabinet: António Cabral. Frutuoso de Melo.

Lopes Cardoso, Sampaio Nunes, Cabral da Fonseca….

SR: This is interesting because it means that there was a place where officials met.

ALS: Officials of the Community, NATO and the embassies.

SR: So they were meeting and having an intensive activity, exchanges of views, conferences,

inviting notorious Europeans…

ALS: Portuguese and Europeans.

SR: How many people were part of it?

ALS: It had 30 or 40 members. It depended on the guest.



SR: Was it a formal membership or more an informal club?

ALS: It was an informal club. Last time with Barroso everybody was there. We also used to

invite Portuguese ministers of Foreign Affairs and secretaries of State. It was very lively.

SR: Did you keep any kind of record of the debates, or compte-rendus?

ALS: I do not think so. Ask Mr. Cabral, he is the president now. António Cabral, a member of

Barroso´s Cabinet.

SR: About the Portuguese accession, what were your worries about it?

ALS: I have already told you the first one: the acquis communautaire was extremely difficult,

because the translations sent from Portugal were very bad and they had to be revised by our

translators. And then there was the legal “mise au point”. It was a very hard work, and at that

moment it was clear that our legislation was very far from the AC. Fortunately, there was a

team directed by the Minister of Finance, Professor Hernâni Lopes, who was in charge of the

negotiations. He was able to deal with the problems and bypass the difficulties. This is the

characteristic of our European politics, which is always difficult to understand, to perform, to

finish in Lisbon. But in Brussels ministers are able to solve the problems. That is why our

presidencies were very positive; they have been done in Brussels by national and Union

officials. This is important for a state like ours, a middle-sized state. European questions are

not for Ministers of Foreign Affairs (MFA). What is important for them is the external policy

of the EU, all the other matters are competences for the sectorial ministries under the direction

of the Prime-Minister, assisted by a minister/secretary of State for European Affairs. During

the negotiations, the team directed by Hernâni Lopes was well prepared. Very often,

ministries and national officials in Lisbon were unable to accept the steps forward of our

accession. They wanted the accession, but they did not want to pay a price. Typical!

Enlargement negotiations were very difficult. There were many positions against the

integration of Portugal and Spain, until the end. I remember when Delors was already

president, at the end of 1985, in a morning after a night of negotiations in the Charlemagne,

he came down totally upset with Portugal and Spain. So, it was difficult, and at the end we did

it. I speak about Portugal. Spain was a little bit different. The team of Hernâni Lopes was the



real motor of the negotiations. We were always adapting the texts as they were being

modified by negotiators. The Commission had translators and legal experts. We were only

two legal counsels, and the others were translators; it was a team of 7 or 10 for each language

in the Council. In the Commission there were some others like Pedro Guerra e Andrada, still

in the Legal Service of the Commission

SR: By then there were other selection processes afterwards?

ALS: Of course, for all the positions. Even for legal experts, so I applied and I became a legal

advisor with A5 grade. I was the only Portuguese legal advisor in the Council. Others were

jurist linguists, such as Lopes Cardoso… There were 20 or 30 translators. And the

administrators were A7 and A5, and one A2.

SR: Do you remember the name of the A2?

ALS: Amilcar Theias, he was later minister in Portugal, we are close friends. You could even

contact him, he is man who enjoys talking. He was Director for Financial Questions. In the

Legal Service the only Portuguese Director until now has been me.

SR: In the case of Spain we see that there was a system where there was a negotiation about

the position the Spaniards would occupy.

ALS: Of course, we had the same. But things are not so easy. At the end of negotiations there

were a lot of future Directors, of future Commissioners, etc. I have known many. The things

were not so easy, because in a certain way there was a selection and the candidates did not get

the jobs. And there were very few jobs.

SR: By the time there was a negotiation about the kind of position and then there were the

people, these were two different kinds of negotiations.

ALS: Yes, and for the A2 the selection was relatively easy, but for the A5 it was not, it was a

real selection. And they intended to do it with an informal selection.



SR: In the case of the Commission normally they present several candidates for the same

position.

ALS: Several times they are not accepted. Even that happened in the Council.

SR: In the Commission Emile Noël was the first person the new officials met even before

they met the Commissioner, and in case of the Council was it the Secretary General Ersböll?

ALS: Ersböll was one of the first persons I met.

SR: What do you remember about him? How do you remember him?

ALS: He was a very kind man, very polite and very Nordic with the best worldview I have

encountered in the Council. He was the best General Secretary of the Council. In relation to

staff policy, he tried to impose the transparency of methods inside the Council. Later it

became different. We had a Secretaire general, De Boissieu, who had a French conception of

the Community administration. It has been a very tumultuous time for the Council.

SR: Is it an administrative French tradition? They do what they want.

ALS: L´interêt general. Napoleonic, pyramidal…

SR: Could you say a word about the social networks?

ALS: Yes, I knew everybody, the other Portuguese officials in the EC.

SR: The Portuguese Commissioner and his Cabinet?

ALS: Cabral da Fonseca was the Director of Cabinet. Sampaio Nunes, the deputy director.

The Commissioner was Cardoso e Cunha. Later he was replaced by Deus Pinheiro. The third

Portuguese Commissioner was António Vitorino. Almeida Serra, who had been minister for

the Sea in Portugal, became Director General for Fisheries in the Commission. And later,

António Cavaco. Carlos Costa, now the governor of the Bank of Portugal, was Head of



Cabinet of Deus Pinheiro and before that he was at the Permanent Representation. He was

also a member of the Portuguese Club. I knew everybody at that moment

SR: Typically these are the persons, Commissioner and his Head of Cabinet, who were more

or less getting in the negotiations.

ALS: Yes, but it is outside the Council. The Council has always been reluctant to enter into

this kind of negotiation. At least with a medium-sized state as Portugal, if you know what I

mean...

SR: Yes, but the important thing is to know who the people were.

ALS: The main figure of the conception “my friends will become directors” was the Head of

Cabinet, Cabral da Fonseca. But there were many others. They did not know how things were

done. Nepotism has always been considered as normal in Portugal: I choose my friends

because they are the best, with them I am able to form a team. Cavaco Silva, the Prime

Minister, and Cardoso e Cunha did not know it either at the beginning. Things changed with

Vitor Martins as Secretary of State.

SR: In the Spanish case there was some tendency to appoint people closer to the

Commissioner, but sometimes the Commissioner understood that it was more important

having a diplomat…

ALS: Yes, but you had two Commissioners then. And we had only one, and one close to

Cavaco Silva, who knew nothing at the beginning about the internal life of the Institutions.

But he is a person who can learn. And he learnt. Today, as President of the Republic, he is the

best prepared Portuguese politician on European matters. The other Prime Ministers did not

learn too much about the functioning of the Institutions. Except Barroso, of course.

SR: When you arrived in the Legal Service of the Council there was already the tradition

which Claus Dieter Ehlermann inaugurated of meeting regularly between Legal Services of

the Council and the Commission?



ALS: No, the Legal Services of both Institutions did not have much regular contact…

SR: We interviewed Ehlermann, who said that he had done it. Do you remember him?

ALS: Yes, but we did not have much contact. Contact existed between the two Directors

General, not so much between the Services. If you had a proposal you needed to contact your

counterpart in the Commission. But from an institutional point of view, the two legal services

did not met together regularly. We used to do it with the Parliament Legal Service once a

year, not with the Commission´s.

SR: Ehlermann said that he managed to introduce an informal tradition by which the Directors

met regularly to somehow update each other on the situations.

ALS: At the level of Directors sometimes. But not at level of legal services as a whole. I often

met my colleagues when I was director, but it was not regular.

SR: Very different conceptions?

ALS: Yes. The more different conceptions are between the Council and the Parliament, and

between their legal services. The Legal Service of the Parliament is now a real legal service,

but it was not at all before. There is a meeting, “Conference de Presidents”, in which the legal

service takes part. I participated in this conference several times. When one of the members of

the group asked for the position of the Legal Service, Clariana Garson, who was the Director

General of the Legal Service, wanted to speak. But it was up to the Secretary General to speak

on behalf of the Legal Service. In the Council it could not happen. In the several formations

of the Council, the Legal Service always presented (and presents, I suppose) its position. We

were always respected and never accepted a position against our conception of the law. Many

times in the Court we had to defend positions which were not ours, but in the formations of

the Council, before the adoption of an act, we were free to say: “The position of the Legal

Service is this one. Of course, we will defend the Council before the Court in any case, but we

have to advise you in accordance with law and case-law”. This cannot happen in the

Parliament. And I do not know if that happened in the Commission. In the Council you have

27 members now, which prevents political pressure. The Legal Service is very independent in



the Council. And it is difficult for the delegations not to adopt the legal view of the Legal

Service.

SR: But in the case of the Commission we heard that there was a mythical period, of the first

director of the Legal Service, who was more or less more independent from political

pressures. But it is true that the Legal Services of the EC serves the College of the

Commission. And the relationship between him and the Director General of the Legal

Service, who is the only one apart of the Secretary General who participates in the College

deliberation, is normally an autonomous…

ALS: It is different in the Council.

SR: And the substantial conception? Because the EC is always pro-integration, supranational?

How would you define this legal conception between both Institutions?

ALS: The difference is that the Council tries to adopt a legalistic approach very close to the

Treaties. And the EC many times asks its Legal Service to build a certain reading of the

Treaties… which is not totally in accordance with them. It is, let me say, a “creative” or

“proactive” position… I do not see the question as one of pro-integration or not. The question

is how to integrate. Integration by Law or by political will. The Legal Service of the Council

has always been moved by the respect of Law. It is not a political body. Before the Court it

has to defend the Council, even if the Council acted in contravention of the Treaties. But

before the adoption, the Service warns the Council of the dangers of such action. I have had to

defend the Council before the Court when it had adopted positions in contradiction with the

advice I had given before.

SR: It is very challenging.

ALS: It happens very often, we are legal advisors and lawyers of the Council. It is a question

of training.

SR: In the EC there is a very collegiate/horizontal way of working. Is this also the case in the

Council?



ALS: Also in the Council. We had a meeting per week to discuss the most important things.

And each of the teams in the Legal Service had discussions inside. Everything was discussed.

Of course, discussion is pyramidal: many times I was not in agreement with the opinion of the

Legal Service given at the end. But I had to accept it. We expressed ourselves freely, but the

work of the Legal Service is hierarchically organized;

SR: Could you say a word about the so-called Monday morning meetings?

ALS: Yes. At the end of my presence they were changed to Thursdays. Each lawyer in charge

of a dossier used to explain his file, and to accept the observations of the others. But it was

relatively more formal than inside of each team. In the teams we had regular meetings

concerning the opinions asked by the working parties.

SR: How many members were in the Legal Service of the Council when you arrived?

ALS: Very few. 25-30 legal advisors, beside the jurist linguists.

SR: Are there some persons besides the director general who are the legal memory or are

embodying the tradition of the practice of law in the Legal Service?

ALS: I only would mention Jean-Paul Jacqué, a French professor. He had been the president

of the University of Strasbourg, and legal advisor of the Parliament before arriving to the

Council. We retired the same year. We worked very closely together. He is perhaps the best

institutional jurist in the framework of the Communities. He is the author of a very important

bibliography on Community Law.

SR: Do you have contacts with associations of lawyers or universities, the ULB for example?

ALS: We had many in the beginning. We used to travel around Europe to give lectures.

Afterwards there was no money to travel... But of course we kept the contacts. I have always

been a member of the European Air Law Association. I attended all the congresses of EALA

and presented papers when I was legal advisor for the Council of Transports. I was regularly



present at the symposiums of the IATA, the International Air Transport Association. I had

also contacts with Maastricht, the Institute of Administration, and with ERA, the Academy of

European Law, in Trier. I attended their seminars regularly2.

SR: With the College of Europe also?

ALS: Yes, in Natolin (Poland) and in Bruges.

SR: Someone in particular?

ALS: Jean-Paul Jacqué in Bruges. And in Natolin Klaus Malacek and Dominik Hanf. One of

my papers was edited by Natolin in 2010 in the book Langues et construction européenne. I

also used to prepare the officials of the new member states to attend the meetings of

COREPER and working parties. I did that with Poles, Swedes, Finns and Slovenians. I used

to come to the capitals for training meetings. My last training meeting was in Slovenia, just

before the Presidency of January-June 2008 and my retirement. The senior officials needed to

be prepared for the procedures inside the Council, namely in the COREPER. It is a very

difficult task for newcomers. It is a pity, but the Council does not have an administrative code

of procedures. These procedures are, in a large extension, confidential.

SR: And why do you think this is so? Very strategic knowledge, not to be formalized?

ALS: It is typically French. And when the Britons say “we have to introduce new methods”,

they do nothing on precise issues like this one. The position of the UK is very difficult to

understand: they say they want the Union to become more transparent and less bureaucratic,

but they do nothing in that sense. They make abstract announcements. They speak for their

tabloids. That´s all.

SR: The Legal Service of the Commission is a very selective body, because they do not allow

lawyers in the same dossier. They do not want to have outsiders coming and going for the

DG, and that is why they make this rotation compulsory.

2 Réponse réécrite par le témoin lors de la révision.



ALS: We also had rotations. But when you get to a certain level it is difficult to rotate. I

negotiated the essential of the common politics of transportation. It was very difficult to

replace me, because I knew all the essential matters. Agencies for example: I was present in

negotiations concerning many of them. Before I left the Council I had to write texts about the

matter. It is difficult when you reach a certain level to be replaced. I began as a legal advisor

for VAT. I left it very quickly, and I came to transports where I worked for almost fifteen

years.

SR: If it is a small team it is important to have a continuation, it is not like the Legal Service

of EC who has more people to deal with that. So, coming to Transport, were you already

present when there was the judgment of Case 13/83, in 1985?

ALS: No. But I had to apply the decision of the Court.

SR: I think it was one of the important cases in inter-institutional relations and about

transport. And it was the first time the EC and the EP in particular had an active role to have

the Council…

ALS: It was very important. And after that we began to have a real policy of inland transport.

SR: In this case the ECJ took an important leading role?

ALS: The liberalization of inland transports, by road, rail and inland waterways, started

following the ECJ´s judgment. The common transport market could therefore to be completed

together with the single market for goods in 1992. We adopted legislation applying to road

transport services, namely on access to the profession and to the market, working

time, professional road transport, and on minimum annual vehicle taxes, as well as common

rules for tolls and user charges for heavy goods vehicles. An identical framework was adopted

concerning the rail. Last, but not the least, we adopted legislation concerning the Trans-

European Networks. The role of the ECJ was essential in that field. The same happened with

the judgment of 5th November 2002 in the Open Skies Case, establishing the Community

competencies in air transport policy. The leading role of the judges is important in a



Community of Law as EU is. We need that. I hope the judges will be able to do it with the

states, not only with the European Institutions. For the application and for the way they apply.

I worked in the file of the accession of the Community to EuroControl. The states resisted to

accept the accession. Not precisely the states, but the corporations and the officials who do

not want to lose their powers. You see how the Single European Sky and the European ATM

network, already established by Regulations of 2004 and 2005, are far from a real

implementation. Sometimes, during the negotiations inside the Council it is appropriate to

ask: where is the state? In a working party there is a position of the state, in another working

party the national position is totally different. So, where is the state3?

SR: Corporate interests, lobbies…?

ALS: Yes. And even the corporations inside the ministries. In each state, national air control

agencies effectively prevent the existence of a European system of air control that would

facilitate the traffic and internal communications. When we were dealing with the adoption of

a European air control, the Commissioner was Loyola de Palacios, the General Director for

Transports in the Commission was Lamoureux, and the Director for Air Transport was Michel

Airal. We travelled around Europe to meet the national corporations of air control. They all

were against a Community system for corporative reasons. Palacios, Lamoureux and Airal

passed away. The national systems of air control survived. We need political leadership in the

Union but also in the individual states. In the Union the reinforcement of the leadership could

be done with the merger of the post of President of the Commission with that of President of

the Council. We began by creating a Ministry of Foreign Affairs when what we really need is

to coordinate the national and Community policies in the economic, financial and fiscal fields.

In the Union, we need a ministry for the budget, a ministry for financial affairs, a ministry for

the Euro, and we need a transfer of power for these new entities.

SR: Coming to the ECJ, it has played a very important role in the absence of political

leadership to a certain extent. What was the relation with them? Was there some contacts with

them apart from the pleas? Doctrinary debates?

3 Réponse modifiée par le témoin lors de la révision.



ALS: No, the judges are very out of the debates. They debate among themselves. Well, at the

beginning of every year we were invited to the opening of the judicial year. We had social

contacts, in the audiences of course. And some judges use to participate in seminars. It was

the case of Federico Mancini, a scholar.

SR: About the issue of re-launching transportation…

ALS: It was done by the judgment of May 1985 in the Case 13/83…

SR: So, the SEA made of this a political…

ALS: The SEA opened the door to the introduction of qualified majority (QM) and to the

intervention of Parliament with cooperation and later co-decision. The introduction of QM in

a field of the treaty is a step forward. That is why we cannot talk about fiscal policy in Europe

for the moment. Unless we introduce the QM, at least in the Euro area.

SR: I have the hypothesis that a big deal of the policy and transportation managed to get

through at the level of ideas by the action of German civil servants, in particular working

between different Institutions. I think here about Juergen Erdmenger who was director at the

EC. And the president of the Commission of the EP, also member of the German federalist

group. And Ehlermann, most of them were also Social-Democrats, who have a particular

conception, very different from the British one. The British are the other state strongly

interested in transportation, who had DGs, or Clinton Davis, the Commissioner.

ALS: Perhaps your hypothesis is a good one. The Socialist British Commissioner Neil

Kinnock was a very good commissioner during the period I was in Transportation.

SR: But most advances were dealt by van Miert. This Socialist had at that moment a

particular conception at that moment of development a common transportation policy. The

debate was choosing between liberalization or harmonization.

ALS: The only way to begin was liberalization.



SR: So, it is only liberalization which will create harmonization.

ALS: Yes. It is not possible to begin by harmonization. Liberalization is a pre requisite to

harmonization.

SR: Were the Dutch the most reluctant ones?

ALS: Depending on the sector. The Dutch? Perhaps, concerning road transport. The French

regarding aviation and air control… The Greeks…

SR: Maritime transportation (MT)?

ALS: All the member states are very reluctant in this field. You see what happens with

restricted market access for the provision of port services. The application of competition

rules to port services is refused by interest groups in the states… and by the lobbies in the

European Parliament. The liberalization of maritime transport has always been very difficult

to accept. Even for the Britons, who are apparently liberal. For the others, not for themselves.

We need an ECJ judgment in the sector of Maritime Transport4.

SR: There was a substantial continuity of national positions. And the thrust is more possible

due to this approach of Karel van Miert, being the most liberal of the Socialist.

ALS: I think that the question of approaching the transport policy outside a liberalization

perspective is an odd situation, it is impossible. We have to apply the competition rules, and

this means to liberalize more and more. For example, urban public transport. You have to

liberalize; otherwise there will be a permanent transport deficit in the Europe's cities. You are

right: a liberal Socialist approach is the appropriate one in this field. Unfortunately Van Miert

is dead. Liberal Socialists are not very common.

SR: When did you leave the Transportation?

4 Réponse retravaillée par le témoin lors de la révision.



ALS: 2003.

SR: So, you saw most of the period…Thanks a lot.



Index des noms de personnes

Airal, Michel, 29 Almeida Serra, Jose, 22 Altares, Pedro, 6 Alzaga, Oscar, 6 Barroso, Jose Manuel, 13, 19, 20, 23 Blair, Tony, 16 Cabral da Fonseca, Antonio, 22, 23 Cabral da Fonseca, Eurico, 19 Cabral, António, 19, 20 Camplonch, Josep, 11 Camus, Albert, 4 Cardoso e Cunha, António, 22, 23 Carlos, Palma, 9 Cavaco, António, 8, 11, 22, 23 Civitelli, Tonino, 7 Clinton Davis, Stanley, 30 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel, 7, 9 Costa, Carlos, 22 Crugnola, Amalia, 7 De Boissieu, Pierre, 22 de Carvalho, Orlando, 5, 6 de Deus Pinheiro, João, 22, 23 de Loyola de Palacios, Ignacia, 29 de Sampaio Nunes, Pedro, 19, 22 Delors, Jacques, 17, 20 Dewost, Jean-Louis, 17 Eco, Umberto, 14 Ehlermann, Claus Dieter, 23, 24, 30 Erdmenger, Jürgen, 30 Ersböll, Niels, 22 Fernandes, Almeida, 7 Frutuoso de Melo, Fernando, 19 Garson, Clariana, 24 Guerra e Andrada, Pedro, 21

Hanf, Dominik, 27 Jacqué, Jean-Paul, 26, 27 Kinnock, Neil, 30 Kohl, Helmut, 17 Lain Entralgo, Pedro, 6 Lamoureux, François, 29 Lopes Cardoso, António, 11, 12, 19, 21 Lopes, Hernâni, 1, 3, 20 Malacek, Klaus, 27 Mancini, Federico, 30 Marques, Dias, 9 Martins, Vitor, 11, 23 Mendes, Castro, 7 Mitterrand, François, 17 Moitinho de Almeida, Pedro, 11 Navarro, Aguilar, 6 Noël, Émile, 19, 22 Piris, Jean-Claude, 17 Ridruejo, Dionisio, 6 Ruano, Ramos, 11 Ruiz Jiménez, Joaquín, 6 Santos, Felix, 6 Sartorius, Nicolás, 6 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 4 Sauvageot, Jacques, 7 Silva, Cavaco, 8, 11, 23 Sotelo, Calvo, 11 Spazzali, Giuliano, 7 Theias, Amilcar, 21 Thorn, Gaston, 12 Vailland, Roger, 4 van Miert, Karel, 19, 30, 31 Vitorino, António, 22

Documents

Entretien avec Amadeu Lopes SABINO