Former PCP deputy and MEP Sergio Ribeiro has died

Former PCP member and MEP Sergio Ribeiro has died at the age of 88, the party announced this Monday, highlighting his dedication to the struggle “for the emancipation of the people, for democracy, social progress, peace and socialism.”

In a statement, the Secretariat of the PCP Central Committee expresses “deep regret” over the death of Sergio Ribeiro, conveying to his family “its sincere condolences and solidarity at this sad moment.”

In a note, PCP states that Sérgio Ribeiro was born in 1935 and “from a young age he was actively involved in the student associations of the Higher Institute of Economic Sciences and Finance of Lisbon, of which he was vice-president.”

He later joined the PCP in 1959, joining the party’s underground cell of economists, where he carried out “several tasks that led to him being arrested twice by the PIDE, in Alyouba and Caxias, and was released from that prison on April 27, 1974 ” .

“He participated in the 2nd Republican Congress of Aveiro in 1969 and was part of the National Committee of the 3rd Congress of the Democratic Opposition, held in Aveiro in 1973,” the note says.

After 25 April, Sérgio Ribeiro was a member of the Assembly of the Republic in the 1980s and was also the chief consultant to the International Labor Organization (ILO) mission in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and other African countries. country by “integrating the Portuguese delegation to the International Labor Conference in 1974” in Geneva as a government delegate.

“He was also a member of the European Parliament from 1990 to 1999, in 2004 and 2005, and from 1994 to 1999 he was quaestor,” the party says, adding that, as an MEP, Sérgio Ribeiro was a member of several committees and participated in European Parliament Intergroup on Timor-Leste.

The PKP also states that Sérgio Ribeiro was a member of the municipal assemblies of Amadora and Ourem, founded the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation and was a member of the PKP Central Committee. He also wrote “several books and articles, mainly on political economy.”

“Sérgio Ribeiro, a prominent communist activist, a respected intellectual who played a prominent role in the April Revolution, devoted his entire life to struggle and intervention for the liberation of people, democracy, social progress, peace and socialism,” emphasizes the PCP. .

Elected at the XVI Congress, he was a member of the Central Committee of the PCP from 2000 to 2012 and of the Municipal Commission of Ourem, the municipality where his father, Joaquim Ribeiro, was born and where Sérgio Ribeiro settled in the city. Zambujal, in Atugia parish.

In Oura, Santarem district, Sérgio Ribeiro was one of the 38 partners of the Som da Tinta bookstore, together with the Nobel laureate José Saramago or the musician Manuel Freire, and published several works.

In recent years, he has dedicated himself to the development of the Joaquim Ribeiro Documentation Center, located in the old Zambujala Primary School and opened in September 2020.

The main goal of the center is “to make accessible the valuable documentary and bibliographic collection of Sérgio Ribeiro, which he donated to the municipality of Orem,” announced then the chamber, which awarded him the gold medal of the municipality in 2018.

In a statement, the PCP said that today, from 18:00, the body will be kept in the burning chamber at the Joaquim Ribeiro Documentation Center in Atugie, Orem, from where it will leave at 14:00 on Tuesday to the Entroncamento cemetery, where he will be cremated at 16: 00.