He was a representative to the Council of Europe, Secretary General of the Western European Union (WEU), and an envoy to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.
Cutileiro's father, a republican and secularist doctor, faced political problems with the Salazar regime, and chose to leave the country to join the World Health Organization (WHO), taking his wife and children, then teenagers, to live in Switzerland, India and Afghanistan.
[5] With the carnation revolution, Cutileiro was invited by Mário Soares to enter the diplomatic service, having started by being a cultural attaché of the Portuguese embassy in London.
In 1992, as coordinator of the European Community's Conference on Yugoslavia, he presided over talks on future constitutional arrangements for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Cutileiro was co-author of the Carrington–Cutileiro plan, sometimes known as the Lisbon Agreement, in February 1992, an attempt to prevent Bosnia-Herzegovina sliding into war.
In 1999, it was agreed that the holder of the newly created post of High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union should also be the Secretary-General of the WEU.
[8] Cutileiro wrote essays, poetry books and other works of an anthropological nature, the most recent publication being the “Inventário: Desabafos e Divagações de Um Sético”.
[1] He also wrote obituaries for the Expresso, including those for Mário Soares, Maria de Jesus and Fidel Castro.