MEP and founder of the Left Bloc, Miguel Portas, died on Tuesday April 24th in 2013 Antwerp, the victim of prolonged illness.
In 2010, he was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the right lung, while undergoing a routine medical examination in Brussels, where he worked.
Miguel Portas was the first elected deputy of the Left Bloc to the European Parliament, where he had worked for the past eight years, but his career was notable for his writing and journalism.
"He faced his own illness, as he did everything from politics to journalism, up front and full on. He had an intense life and lived it to the full. Throughout his illness he continued to fulfill his responsibilities and was preparing the European Parliament's report on the accounts of the ECB," according to a statement issued by Left Bloc, the party Miguel Portas helped to found.
Born in Lisbon on May 1, 1958, Miguel de Sacadura Cabral Portas, the older brother of the current Foreign Minister and the CDS-PP leader, Paulo Portas, gained political prominence in the late 1990s, but also distinguished himself in journalism.
He gained a degree in economics from the School of Economics and Management in Lisbon in 1986, and after experiences in the cultural sector, became a professional journalist, running the magazine Contraste (1986), working at the newspaper Expresso (1988) and becoming editor of its journal Revista (1992-94) and being director of the weekly Já (1995), among other engagements.
In the European Assembly, he worked in several areas, integrated into the United Left Group, to which the Left Bloc belongs, having been the first author of a report on the integration of immigrants into Europe, a theme particularly dear to him. He was reporting on the finance and operation of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund when his illness brought his life to its end.
See also a recent article on Miguel Portas:
http://algarvedailynews.com/features/world-affairs/6178-portugal-europe-and-the-euro
