João Gomes Cravinho

João Cravinho was born in Lisbon in 1964.

He has a PhD in Political Science from Oxford University and a master’s and undergraduate degree from the London School of Economics.

He was European Union Ambassador to Brazil from August 2015 to October 2018 and had been in the same post in India from 2011 to 2015. 

From March 2005 to June 2011, he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in the 17th and 18th Governments under the 1976 Democratic Constitution.

Previously, he lectured as Professor of International Relations at Coimbra University Faculty of Economics and as visiting professor at ISCTE and the School of Law at Nova University in Lisbon. 

He was a Consultant for the National Defence Institute, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the European Commission, and the World Bank. He presided over the Portuguese Cooperation Institute from 2001 to 2002. He completed the Leadership for Senior Executives course at Harvard Business School in April 2018. He was a rapporteur for the Judicial Sector in the World Bank’s Joint Assessment Mission for East Timor, 1999. In that same year he was coordinator and member of an international observer mission of the East Timor popular consultation. He wrote the book "Visions of the World" (2002), published several papers in specialist academic reviews and journals on subjects relating to defence policy, cooperation, and international relations. 

He was Minister of National Defence in Prime Minister António Costa’s 1st Government, since October 2018, and in his second Government.