ABSTRACT
Portugal accessed the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986, twelve years after the Revolution of the Carnations, which put an end to the authoritarian regime known as Estado Novo (New State). Portugal’s integration was a result of an elite-based negotiation process that started immediately after the transition to democracy, and through which political elites sought to break with the dictatorial, isolationist and colonialist past (Pinto and Teixeira 2003). The first constitutional government of the democratic era (elected in 1976) defined a new foreign policy, based on European relations, and viewed European membership as means for democratic consolidation, but also as a condition for economic development and modernization (Pinto and Teixeira 2005; Teixeira 2012; Lobo 2007). Portugal’s formal request for EEC membership was submitted in 1977 but conditioned by the community’s decision of negotiating the Iberian countries’ accession simultaneously. The double accession was not possible before the mid 1980s due to the political and economic turmoil that both Portugal and Spain experienced during this period. The Treaty of Accession was signed in Lisbon on 12 June 1985 and Portugal became a full member on 1 January 1986 (Teixeira 2012, 13–14).
