Eduardo Chagas was elected General Secretary of the ETF for the first time in May 2005 for the mandate 2005-2009 and was re-elected for a new 4 year mandate in May 2013. He joined the ETF in January 2000 and was responsible for Maritime Transport, Fisheries and Dockers until 2005. Since October 2009 he has been the Regional Coordinator for all the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) regions.  He represents the ETF in the Executive Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation. Chagas is a member of the National Council of the Portuguese Workers’ General Confederation (CGTP-IN) and was a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and a member of the Bureau of its Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and Information Society Section between 1994 and June 2008. He was rapporteur on a number of EESC opinions in the fields of transport and fisheries.