Henrique Medina Carreira

Medina Carreira died on 3 July 2017 at the age of 85.

He has worked extensively as a lawyer, business consultant and university professor, and has become well known due to the commentaries and opinions he posted in the Portuguese media (like in SIC Notícias TV show Plano Inclinado hosted by Mário Crespo) warning about the risk of collapse of the Portuguese public finances – an event that would happen in 2011 in the 2010-2012 Portuguese financial crisis.

Medina Carreira was born in Bissau, in what was then the Portuguese overseas territory of Guinea, in 1931. His father was a historian whose hometown was Ilha do Fogo, also in Portuguese Africa. Medina Carreira went to Lisbon where he studied at the Pupilos do Exército military school and obtained a degree in mechanical engineering which in turn allowed him to work at Companhia União Fabril conglomerate's steelworks. He received a degree in law from the University of Lisbon in 1962 and studied economics at the ISEG/Technical University of Lisbon, but did not graduate. After the Carnation Revolution in 1975 Pinheiro de Azevedo called him to the Sixth Provisional Government as Undersecretary of State for the Budget, a position he left shortly afterwards to take over the functions of the Minister of Finance in the Primeiro Governo Constitucional (the first cabinet after the Carnation Revolution). In 1978 he resigned from all his duties in the Portuguese Socialist Party. He left in disagreement on the economic policy adopted by the ruling party.

Henrique Medina Carreira (14 December 1930 – 3 July 2017) was a Portuguese jurist and financial expert who served as Minister of Finance from 1976 to 1978.