The constitutionalist Pedro Bacelar de Vasconcelos was appointed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, to carry out the functions of National Coordinator of the European Strategy to Combat Antisemitism and Promote Jewish Life.
Pedro Carlos da Silva Bacelar de Vasconcelos holds a PhD in Law, Legal and Political Sciences, from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra. Retired Professor of Public Law at the Law School of the University of Minho, he was, inter alia, civil governor of the District of Braga (1995-1999); European Union Special Envoy for the Political Transition Process in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997/1998; vice-president of the Convention for the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (1999/2000); Director of Constitutional and Electoral Affairs of the United Nations (UNTAET), in Timor-Leste (2000); and national coordinator of the UN program – Alliance of Civilizations, chaired by Jorge Sampaio (2007/2011).
Pedro Bacelar de Vasconcelos will take care of representing Portugal in the forums that discuss and implement the objectives of this initiative. “At the right time, the European Union took the initiative to launch this campaign”, considered Pedro Bacelar, whose duties as national coordinator will not be remunerated.
A campaign “that contemplates the convenience of ensuring an effective articulation between all the Member States in order to contemplate the great diversity that these prejudices assume in the whole of the European territory”. And that it will combine “the denunciation of manifestations of prejudice with its timely prevention and associating the rejection of such feelings with knowledge, dissemination and appreciation for the cultural diversity that constitutes the valuable civilizational heritage of the human ‘race’”, added Pedro Bacelar de Vasconcelos.
