In this interview excerpt, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, co-founder and Director of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (IEEI) in Lisbon from 1981 to 2007 and Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) from 2007 to 2012, discusses the years of democratic transition in Portugal in the mid-1970s, the plans that polarised the political landscape and the support from the general public for the country’s future accession to the European Communities.

In this interview excerpt, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, co-founder and Director of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (IEEI) in Lisbon from 1981 to 2007 and Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) from 2007 to 2012, describes political reactions in Portugal to the country’s application in 1977 for accession to the European Communities. He also shares his personal experience as a political exile, explaining how Portuguese political exiles who returned to the country after the fall of the Salazar dictatorship in 1974 were in favour of European integration and decolonisation.

In this interview excerpt, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, co-founder and Director of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (IEEI) in Lisbon from 1981 to 2007 and Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) from 2007 to 2012, describes the political, strategic, economic and cultural development of Portugal since its accession to the European Communities and analyses the advantages and disadvantages of this political change.

In this interview excerpt, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, co-founder and Director of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (IEEI) in Lisbon from 1981 to 2007 and Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) from 2007 to 2012, describes how Portugal prepared for and hosted the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 1992, 2000 and 2007.