With several positions held in the Social Democratic Youth (JSD), including president of the National Political Commission between 2018 and 2020, Margarida Balseiro Lopes is one of the seven women who make up Luís Montenegro’s Executive. At 34 years old, she is the youngest member of the Government.
He is currently vice-president of the PSD National Political Commission and one of the closest faces to the party’s current leader, Luís Montenegro. Until now, Margarida Balseiro Lopes worked as a consultant at Deloitte.
It will have the Youth and Modernization portfolio, which should focus on the problems of young people, one of the age groups that currently face serious problems in accessing housing and also in the job market.
Youth once again becomes a ministry portfolio. In 2000, in the socialist government headed by António Guterres, there was a Ministry of Youth and Sports: first supervised by Armando Vara and then by José Lello. In 2004, in the social-democratic government of Santana Lopes, there was the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Rehabilitation. The minister was Henrique Chaves. In the previous Government, headed by António Costa, Youth was in a State secretariat, together with Sports.
Margarida Balseiro Lopes, born in Marinha Grande, was a social democratic deputy in the Assembly of the Republic between 2015 and 2022, elected by the Leiria constituency. In Parliament, she was a member of several committees, namely the Budget and Finance committee and the Education, Science, Youth and Sport committee.
In August 2019, as a JSD candidate for the Leiria constituency, she said that student accommodation was one of the topics she focused on most in her interventions in parliamentary committees.
“The scourge of low wages for young people in Portugal will certainly be another area of intervention, in addition to the review of the volunteering law. And as long as housing continues to be one of the main obstacles to the emancipation of young people, we will not remain silent. Many other themes will deserve our attention. Young Portuguese people will be the recipients of our political action in the Assembly of the Republic”, reads on the JSD website, in a publication dated August 2019.
The new Minister of Youth and Modernization has a degree in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, a master’s degree in Law and Management from the Catholic University, a postgraduate degree in Taxation from the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University and a PhD candidate in Law at the University Catholic.
