Former Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa made his debut this Monday as a television star on Now, a new channel dedicated only to information that belongs to Medialivre, also owner of the CMTV network. At the time when his former colleagues from the European Council sat down to dinner in Brussels to talk about the distribution of community positions, in which he has a chance of occupying one of the two main ones, Costa expanded on football and the national team with the journalist Pedro Mourinho in a program called Otimist, which for now will drive every week. A name tailored to the vital attitude of the socialist politician, one allergic to defeatism who was described by the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, as possessing “a chronic, and sometimes irritating, optimism.” The space aims to show the best of the country and has started with football, now that the team aspires to win its second European Championship.
Diplomacy is another strong issue for the country, but it is not expected to star in a television program. Portugal has a population similar to that of Greece (just over 10 million inhabitants) and an international presence currently greater than that of Italy or Spain, the third and fourth economies of the European Union. If the community scheme that is currently under discussion prospers, Costa will become president of the European Council in the next term, the institution that represents the heads of state or government of the EU. In 2017, Portugal already managed to place another former socialist prime minister, António Guterres, at the head of the UN, and between 2004 and 2014 they had José Manuel Durão Barroso as president of the European Commission. The conservative Durão Barroso had been named prime minister two years earlier and his hasty departure for Brussels was a success for the country’s diplomacy, although a disaster for the Social Democratic Party (PSD, centre-right), which lost half a million in the following elections. votes, 30 seats and power.
With that stampede in his head, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, gave an ultimatum to Costa when he won the elections in January 2022 with an absolute majority. Rebelo considered that it was a personal victory and that if he left the position of prime minister to go to Brussels, as he wished, he would call early elections. And so it was, at least the first part of the equation, although the events did not occur as expected. In November 2023, António Costa resigned from office after an operation by the Prosecutor’s Office against the approval of business projects of his Government. In addition to the arrest of his best friend Diogo Lacerda Machado and his chief of staff, Vítor Escária, an investigation into the prime minister was opened in the Supreme Court. That same morning he presented his resignation out of responsibility and with a “clear conscience.”
Rebelo de Sousa dissolved the Assembly of the Republic and called elections, which allowed the conservative Democratic Alliance coalition to come to power and the appointment of Luís Montenegro as prime minister. In the television program this Monday, Costa refused to comment on the judicial investigation into him, still open, and the main obstacle to the advancement of his candidacy. Upon his arrival at dinner on Monday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk praised his political conditions to preside over the European Council, but demanded that his judicial situation be clarified.
In May, six months after the investigation against him was opened, António Costa was summoned to testify before prosecutors. He emerged without being charged in the case, although it has not been filed either. The operation, which was initially presented as a case of corruption, has been severely criticized in two judicial instances, which reduced the matter to a possible case of influence peddling and have indicated that they see no indications that point to the former prime minister.
The unconditional support of the current center-right Government also plays in favor of the Portuguese socialist’s candidacy. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro reiterated this Monday in Brussels, before the informal dinner, that he will put all his “effort” to support his candidacy and showed his confidence that it will prosper, reports the Lusa agency. “If this candidacy is assumed by the socialist family, I am convinced that it will be successful,” he stated. Costa, he added, “has political positions that mean that, in addition to being Portuguese, one can have more confidence in him than in a German, Spanish, Maltese or Danish socialist, at least of those who have been presented so far as potential candidates.” .
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Montenegro’s efforts in favor of Costa’s candidacy include the meeting he will have this Wednesday at the Elysee Palace in Paris with President Emmanuel Macron. If the French president also gives him his support, António Costa would be closer to his goal, with the support of three important leaders, after the German Olaf Scholz and the Spanish Pedro Sánchez.
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