Teresa Caeiro (born 1969) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician.

Early life

Teresa Margarida de Figueiredo de Vasconcelos Caeiro was born in the Portuguese capital of

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

on 14 February 1969. She was the daughter and granddaughter of naval officers, her father being a rear admiral and his father an admiral. As a child she lived in several countries, including

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, where she lived between the ages of 9 and 19, following her father in his work. She graduated in law from the Faculty of Law of the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

, and did an internship at a legal company between 1993 and 1995. Then she worked as a freelance translator at the

Court of Justice of the European Union The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (french: Cour de justice de l'Union européenne or "''CJUE''"; Latin: Curia) is the Judiciary, judicial branch of the European Union (EU). Seated in the Kirchberg, Luxembourg, Kirchberg quart ...

and at the

European General Court The General Court, informally known as the European General Court (EGC), is a constituent court of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It hears actions taken against the institutions of the European Union by individuals and member stat ...

from 1996 to 1999. Between 1998 and 1999, she was also a lawyer at

Portugália Airlines Portugália Airlines is a Portuguese regional airline with its head office on the grounds of Lisbon Portela Airport in Lisbon. It is a subsidiary of TAP Air Portugal and operates scheduled international and domestic services from its bases at Li ...

Political career

A member of the

Christian democratic Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...

CDS – People's Party The CDS – People's Party ( pt, CDS – Partido Popular, derived from ''Centro Democrático e Social – Partido Popular'', CDS–PP)

(CDS-PP), Caeiro had her first active political experience as a member of the parish assembly of Mercês in Lisbon, between 1997 and 2001. In the late 1990s she was asked to be the legal advisor to the parliamentary group of the CDS-PP, in the Assembly of the Republic. She later became the chief of staff for the same CDS-PP parliamentary group. In the 2002 legislative elections the CDS-PP included Caeiro on the

constituency list of candidates to be a deputy in the Assembly of the Republic. Although she was elected, she did not take office as she was appointed to the post of civil governor of Lisbon, on 14 May 2002. In September 2003, however, she left the post in Lisbon to become Secretary of State for Social Security in the coalition government of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

and CDS-PP, under the prime minister

José Manuel Barroso José Manuel Durão Barroso (; born 23 March 1956) is a Portuguese politician and university teacher, currently serving as non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He previously served as the 11th president of the European Commi ...

. In 2004, under the new prime minister, Pedro Santana Lopes, she was appointed Secretary of State for Arts and Performances. In 2005 she was again elected to the National Assembly as a candidate on the CDS-PP list for the

Leiria Leiria (; cel-x-proto, ɸlāryo) is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat of its own distr ...

constituency. She was re-elected in 2009 and 2011, for the Lisbon constituency and again in 2015, for the Faro constituency. Caeiro was involved with a charitable organization called ''Raríssimas'', that aimed to help people with rare mental illnesses. In 2019, the founder and president was taken to court by the charity to obtain repayment of over €380,000 of funds, said to have been used inappropriately. Caeiro had been a member of the governing body at the time, although the extent of her actual involvement with the charity was disputed.

Personal life

Caeiro became an unmarried mother at the age of 37, having a son with a professor, Vasco Rato. In 2011 she married the journalist and writer,

Miguel Sousa Tavares Miguel Andresen de Sousa Tavares (born Porto, 25 June 1952) is a Portuguese lawyer, journalist and writer. The son of poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen and lawyer and politician Francisco Sousa Tavares, Miguel received his education in Law ...

, in what was his fourth marriage. They separated in September 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caeiro, Teresa 1969 births Living people Members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Women members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) CDS – People's Party politicians University of Lisbon alumni