António Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal since 2015, resigned this Tuesday after being involved in an investigation related to influence peddling, corruption and prevarication in energy projects. Costa presented his resignation to the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in the second visit he made to his official residence in Belém in less than four hours, when it had already been revealed that the Supreme Court had opened a separate investigation to clarify the role of the prime minister in the concession of two lithium exploitations in Montalegre and Covas do Barroso and a green hydrogen production project in Sines. Costa has said that “obviously I submitted my resignation” and that he is leaving “with a clear conscience.”
In his statement to the press at the São Bento palace, which hours before had been searched by the police, Costa pointed out that “the dignity” of the position was incompatible with the opening of an investigation by the Supreme Court. “My obligation is also to preserve the dignity of democratic institutions,” he stressed. The two ideas that he repeated during his speech, which included some questions from the press, were that he was unaware of the acts that are considered suspicious, but that the simple announcement by the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic that he would be investigated invalidates him from continuing as head of the Government. “I am not above the law, if there is any suspicion it should be investigated,” he said after claiming the “pride” of having strengthened the judicial means to combat corruption. “I am calm with the judgment of my conscience, not only regarding illegal acts, but even reprehensible ones,” he stressed.
This shock, which in a few hours precipitated the resignation of the prime minister, began this Tuesday morning in Lisbon with the arrest of two people from the closest circle of the prime minister, the socialist António Costa, for irregularities committed in the granting of the exploitation of lithium deposits and green hydrogen projects. One of those detained is Vítor Escária, the prime minister’s chief of staff. The other is the businessman Diogo Lacerda Machado, a great friend of Costa, who entrusted him with strategic missions in the past such as the nationalization of the Portuguese airline TAP. Both arrests were made to avoid the risk of flight, continuation of criminal activity and alteration of the judicial investigation that aims to clarify whether crimes of prevarication, passive and active corruption and influence peddling have been committed. Escária and Lacerda will go to court in the next few hours.
A few hours later, the Attorney General’s Office (Prosecutor’s Office) revealed in a statement that the prime minister is the subject of an autonomous investigation carried out by the Supreme Court for his role in promoting businesses related to the energy transition. “During the course of the investigations, knowledge also emerged of the invocation by suspects of the name and authority of the prime minister and of his intervention to unblock procedures in this context,” the note states.
This Tuesday, the Public Security Police carried out some 42 searches, which include the official residence of the Prime Minister of the São Bento Palace, the Ministries of Infrastructure and Environment and Climate Action, the Municipal Chamber of Sines, several public organizations, 17 homes and five law offices. The Attorney General’s Office has declared the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, and the president of the board of directors of the Portuguese Environment Agency. In addition, the mayor of Sines, the socialist Nuno Mascarenhas, and two businessmen from the company Start Campus, which promoted a project in Sines, have also been arrested in the operation.
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The prime minister’s own communications office confirmed to the Lusa agency the search of the office of chief of staff Vítor Escária, although without further comment. After the searches and arrests, Costa canceled the events planned for this Tuesday in Porto and met for half an hour with the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, at the Belém Palace. The seriousness of the institutional crisis that the operation has unleashed has been confirmed with the meeting that followed in Belém between the Portuguese head of State and the Attorney General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, who promoted the investigation. After this meeting, the note was disseminated informing the Prime Minister of the investigation, who was once again summoned by the President of the Republic to his official residence. At two o’clock Portuguese time, Costa is scheduled to address the nation.
The Social Democratic Party (PSD, centre-right), which leads the opposition, has called an emergency meeting of its permanent commission for this afternoon. At the end, its president, Luís Montenegro, is expected to make an official statement. For his part, the leader of the Liberal Initiative, Rui Rocha, demanded the resignation of Costa as prime minister due to the “seriousness” of the suspicions that affect his inner circle and, if this does not occur, the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic, a power that the president of the country has and that would lead to new elections. André Ventura, president of the far-right Chega party, demanded the immediate dismissal of Minister João Galamba and an explanation from Costa to the country.
favor treatment
The operation is part of an investigation by the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action, which began at the end of 2019 after an anonymous complaint to determine whether there had been favored treatment towards Portuguese companies (EDP, Galp and REN) to exploit a green hydrogen in Sines, the large industrial hub created around the port that is transitioning from the polluting factories of the past to decarbonized ones. The initial project to export green hydrogen to Holland had been presented by a Dutch businessman in the summer of 2019, before the Government publicly involved the three Portuguese companies in it. In addition, the case is investigating the concessions to exploit lithium in Montalegre.
Irregularities plague the other large lithium exploitation project in Covas do Barroso, a few kilometers from the border with Galicia, which received authorization from the Portuguese Environment Agency this year, despite receiving nearly a thousand allegations in against and from a contrary report by a UN rapporteur. The place is also the only Portuguese enclave declared World Agricultural Heritage by the FAO. The Environment Agency gave the green light in May to the project of the British company Savannah Lithium, despite recognizing in its report that it will jeopardize the declaration of the United Nations organization. “The direct or indirect effects, including residual impacts, imposed by the high pressure of projects on the area may compromise the classification of World Agricultural Heritage. It is also considered that there is no compatibility and relevant possibility of landscape integration of the project in the territory,” the Portuguese agency observed in its statement.
The investigation into alleged irregularities in concessions presented as essential for the energy transition affects both the current Minister of the Environment, Duarte Cordeiro, and his predecessor, João Pedro Matos Fernández. Both could be declared arguidos (accused) in the next few hours, as well as the current Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, who was Secretary of State for Energy during the Matos Fernández era. Galamba had been in question for months for his management of the political crisis related to the airline TAP, which led him to have to testify in a parliamentary commission of inquiry.
![João Galamba, during a meeting on hydrogen held in Lisbon in 2021, when he was Secretary of State for Energy.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/IzmAckbDboA15SEqYMqC6_hKklE=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/T7QO6UB2KFDTRKDCTKEDSBE3CI.jpg)
The Attorney General’s Office confirmed in early January that an investigation was underway under judicial secrecy into businesses related to lithium and green hydrogen. After being asked about this process, Minister Galamba responded: “I was never heard about this absurd process, exactly because it is absurd and empty,” as he recalled this Tuesday. Public.
Due to this operation, the previous Minister of the Environment, João Pedro Matos Fernández, had his communications intercepted by court order. Prime Minister António Costa was recorded in four of the several intercepted conversations. Three of them were destroyed and discarded because they were irrelevant to the investigation, but there is a fourth, registered on December 28, 2020, in which Costa and his minister address the lithium and green hydrogen businesses, the possibility of attracting community funds. and billions of investors, according to the weekly Expresso.
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