Ernâni Lopes: "enthusiastic" teacher, "committed" politician

A senior official at the Bank of Portugal, head of the diplomatic mission in Brussels during the transition period between the 1970s and 1980s, and Minister of Finance from 1983 to 1985, Ernâni Rodrigues Lopes is a key figure in the financial, economic, and political history of a changing Portugal, post-April 25th and on the eve of joining the European Economic Community. He is also the protagonist of the book, "Ernâni Lopes: Life and Thought," which will be publicly launched on Wednesday, September 10th, at 6 p.m., at the conference honoring the professor and economist at the Catholic University (the institution that also publishes the work). The President of the Republic will be present and will deliver the closing address.

"Ernâni Lopes: Life and Thought" is coordinated by José Pena do Amaral, Roberto Carneiro, Abraão de Carvalho, Filipe Coelho, José Poças Esteves, Madalena Martins, and Sónia Ribeiro. They selected and organized texts from a vast archive: from notes to academic articles, from public speeches to interviews. The goal was to outline the public profile of Ernâni Rodrigues Lopes, as demonstrated by his political actions and the decisions he defended while serving in government positions. But this book also clearly demonstrates a desire to reveal a more personal side, his personal convictions, particularly regarding family life and his relationship with faith.

The book is not composed solely of texts written by the author himself, and in this excerpt, which Observador reveals in advance of publication, we read a text by another author. The author is Amílcar Theias, former Minister of Cities, Spatial Planning, and the Environment in the Durão Barroso government between 2003 and 2004. Besides being a politician, Theias was also a university student of a then "young assistant," Ernâni Lopes, and was part of work teams formed by him. In this text, he recalls Ernâni Lopes' academic career and early political initiatives, the role he played in Portugal's accession to the then EEC, and the impact of subsequent political decisions.

I met Ernâni Lopes in my third year at the Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences, when he, a young assistant, taught us theories of economic development. His classes were quite different from those we had had in the previous two years of our course. A world encapsulated by a single-minded way of thinking, within a capitalist, abstract, and material model, where almost everything was translated into equations, was now confronted by the real world, centered on humans and social dynamics. History, doubt, method, and strategy emerged as the primary tools for analyzing society, its behavior, and its projection into the future. A few days ago, while reading the Financial Times obituary about Sir Alan Budd, one of the mentors of the turnaround in English economic policy during Margaret Thatcher's time, I thought of Ernâni Lopes and, therefore, I cannot resist transcribing these lines: "Budd's subsequent success underscores a point that still has resonance today – that the narrow, mathematical focus of academic economics is not a necessary or sufficient ingredient to improve economic policy" (FT Weekend 21/22 January 2023).

These were much more compelling topics. Ernâni Lopes was a contagious personality in the enthusiasm with which he presented his subjects, whether from physiocracy to Marxism, or from the causes of underdevelopment to development strategies.

He always demonstrated enthusiasm and commitment in his many activities throughout his life. He was not indifferent to the people he associated with. I remember, during a highly turbulent academic year, 1969/70, when classes were practically suspended and I was no longer his student, the comfort I received from him in the face of my anxieties and dilemmas between my commitment to academic pursuits and the risk of having to interrupt my course and be drafted into military service. At the end of the year, he supported, together with the Director of the Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences, Professor Manuel Jacinto Nunes, my trip to England for a training seminar for young European politicians, organized by members of the English Social Democratic and Liberal parties. He maintained a broad network of contacts, influential among the younger generations, whom he relied on for future projects. I have rarely seen anyone who based their actions more on teamwork and who valued and motivated their collaborators. A few months after the April 25th revolution, he sought me out at the Ministry of Finance to collaborate with him in the newly created PSD Studies Office. This collaboration was short-lived, as shortly thereafter he left for Bonn as Portugal's Ambassador to the government of the Federal Republic of Germany. Melo Antunes, minister and chief political and economic strategist of the military movement, had chosen Ernâni, a senior official at the Bank of Portugal, with the mission of securing the support of the most decisive European state for financial aid to Portugal, crucial to the new regime. His time in Bonn would reinforce his admiration for Germany and its people, its culture, its philosophy, its music, and the rigor and self-discipline that so suited his character. In 1979, the presidential-led government, led by Carlos Mota Pinto, decided to place him in Brussels to head the diplomatic mission there, tasked with injecting dynamism into the negotiations for Portugal's accession to the European Communities. Negotiations, initiated in 1978, in parallel with Portugal and Spain, had made little progress. Resistance, both from the existing member states of the European Communities and from within, was significant. There was a growing awareness that it would be necessary to appoint someone in Brussels with political profile, initiative, and the ability to initiate a dialogue capable of getting the negotiations back on track. Ernâni would eventually land in Brussels that summer, during the transition from the Mota Pinto administration to the administration of Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo. However, his good relationship with Sousa Franco, the new Minister of Finance, would facilitate the launch of his mission in Brussels.