My guest is Jose Manuel Barroso.

Jose Manuel Barroso.

Jose Manuel Barroso was Prime Minister of Portugal from 2000 to 2004.

He then served two five-year terms as President of the European Commission from 2004 to 2014.

He has many current activities, but he's now been the chair of Garvey, the Vaccines Alliance since January 2021.

And he is chairman of international advisors at Goldman Sachs.

Welcome to the podcast, Jose Manuel.

My pleasure. Thank you.

We obviously going to talk about world politics and the position of the European Union in those world politics.

But before we do it very briefly, I would like you to cast your

mind back to the time when you were Prime Minister of Portugal sitting around the European

Council table. And then there was a discussion about who would be the next present of the European

Commission. So as briefly as possible, could you tell me, given that you had a day job, a full-time

job being Prime Minister of Portugal,

what was going on in your mind when you finally accepted the position?

I was not a candidate, to be frank.

It was the fact that there was not an agreement of another possible candidate,

that afterwards my colleagues came and said you are the person that can do that.

Would you consider it? I had some doubts, to be honest, because I was very happy as Prime Minister of Portugal.

I've been in the government of my country in different positions for 12 years, so not only

Prime Minister, but Foreign Minister under the positions, including, by the way, in a very

important position outside the government, is to be a leader of the position. I think it's probably the most

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