The first Portuguese European commissioner, António Cardoso e Cunha, died on Sunday at the age of 87, a former advisor and a PSD source told Lusa.
A chemical engineer by training and a PSD militant, Cardoso e Cunha was a member of parliament, minister for agriculture and fisheries of AD governments led by Sá Carneiro and president of TAP Air Portugal.
In 1986, after Portugal joined the then European Economic Community (EEC), he was appointed European Commissioner, a post he held until 1993.
At the end of the 1990s, he was appointed Commissioner of Expo’98 and then Chairman of the Board of Directors of TAP, leaving the post in 2004 to give way to Fernando Pinto.
