Silva started his political activity while at university, serving as a member of the Porto committee of the Workers' Revolutionary Union, a
Trotskyist group aligned with the
Internationalist Communist League. In the
1976 presidential election, he supported
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, and in the
1980 election, he supported
António Ramalho Eanes. Silva also joined the
Movement of Socialist Left, aligning himself with politicians such as
Alberto Martins, Arnaldo Fleming, and Jorge Ribeiro Strecht. In the
1986 election, he was a supporter of
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo in the first round, followed by
Mário Soares in the second. Five years later, Silva officially joined the Socialist Party. Silva has served in a number of ministerial roles, beginning in 2000 when he was appointed
Minister of Education in the government of Prime Minister
António Guterres, which he served as until 2001. At that time, he was appointed
Minister of Culture, serving for a year in that role. From 2005 to 2009, Silva was the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and the
Minister of Defense from 2009 to 2011, both in the governments of Prime Minister
José Sócrates.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2015–2022 Michael R. Pompeo in
Lisbon, Portugal on 5 December 2019. From the beginning of 2015, Silva served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Prime Minister António Costa. In domestic and international deal-making, Santos Silva and Costa are widely seen as astute negotiators, having been building close ties with other Southern European governments during their time in office. In a diplomatic row over Venezuela's jailing of Portuguese supermarket managers on charges of gouging
food prices, Silva summoned the Venezuelan ambassador to Lisbon in September 2018 and demanded that the problem be resolved swiftly. In 2020, Santos Silva categorically ruled out joining the so-called
17+1 group of eastern and south-eastern European countries that co-operate on China’s
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), saying this was “not Portugal’s geopolitical space”.
President of the Assembly of the Republic, 2022–March 2024 After the
2022 parliamentary election, Santos Silva was elected as President of the
Assembly of the Republic, receiving 156 votes in favor, out of the 230 members of Parliament. ==Other activities==