Manuel Corte-Real

Manuel Corte-Real was born on 29 October 1940, in Lapa, Lisbon. He earned a licentiate degree in History from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon,^[1] where he taught as a lecturer (assistente) from 1966 to 1970.^[2]

He began his diplomatic career in September 1969, when he became an attaché; he became a Third Secretary in 1972 and was posted to the Portuguese embassy in Bonn in October 1973. He was promoted to Second Secretary in 1974 and to First Secretary in 1976; in February 1977, he was posted to the Portuguese embassy in Brasília.^[1]

In January 1980, he was appointed chief of staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Diogo Freitas do Amaral and, in February 1981, as head of the Office for International Political Bodies (Repartição dos Organismos Políticos Internacionais). In October 1982, he was promoted to the rank of Counsellor, and in 1984 was posted to the Portuguese embassy in London;^[1] between January and June 1989, he acted as interim head of mission in London as chargé d'affaires.^[3] In 1990, he was appointed Consul-General in Seville.^[1]

In April 1993, he was promoted to the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary, and in December of that year, Corte-Real became the first Portuguese Ambassador in Kyiv, after Portugal had recognised the independence of Ukraine in 1992.^[4] When Diogo Freitas do Amaral was President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1995–1996, Corte-Real joined him, on secondment, again as his chief of staff.^[1]

In 1998, after being promoted to the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary, First Class, in March, he served as Chief of Protocol of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition.^[1]

In November 1998, he was appointed President of the Portuguese Diplomatic Institute (Instituto Diplomático). He served as the country's Chief of Protocol from October 2000 to September 2002, during which tenure he was promoted to the diplomatic rank of Ambassador. In November 2002, he presented his credentials as the Portuguese Ambassador to Switzerland;^[5] he returned to Portugal in 2005 and once again served as Chief of Protocol, until 2008.^[1] As Chief of Protocol, he was responsible for the important international meetings of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2007 as well as for the ceremonies of the Signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, the 20th EU-Russia Summit in Mafra, and the 2nd EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon.^[6]

More recently, Corte-Real has led the "Missão para o Património" working group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the goal of studying and publishing the cultural heritage of the Necessidades Palace.^[2]

In 2024, Manuel Corte-Real was appointed by the Council of Ministers to the committee of curators for the official commemorations of the quincentennial of the birth of Luís de Camões, on behalf of the Minister of State and of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel.^[7][8]