The Bank of Portugal Ethics Commission considers that Mário Centeno fulfilled his general duties of conduct and acted with due restraint, after the Governor was proposed by the current Prime Minister to replace him in that position.
“In its advice, the Ethics Committee expresses the understanding that the Governor has acted with the restraint required in the specific circumstances described therein and has fulfilled his general duties of conduct as a member of the Board of Directors, regardless of other developments that may occur have arisen around the situation and who are strangers to the Bank of Portugal and the Governor”can be read in the statement released by the banking supervisor on Wednesday.
“Given the request addressed to the Governor by the Prime Minister on the afternoon of November 7, the Governor acted subjectively with the restraint required in those specific circumstances, thereby fulfilling his general duties of conduct”indicates the note.
The Bank of Portugal’s Ethics Committee met on Monday after Mário Centeno was proposed by the current Prime Minister to replace him in the position.
António Costa’s revelation last week provoked criticism and doubts about Mário Centeno’s independence as governor of the Bank of Portugal.
“This is just another demonstration, but much more serious, of the lack of independence that the Governor of the Bank of Portugal has,” accused the PSD parliamentary leader, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, challenging Mário Centeno to say whether he gave his consent. for the Prime Minister proposed his name to the President of the Republic to succeed him in leading a new executive.
The parliamentary leader of IL, Rodrigo Saraiva, was also critical of the solution suggested by António Costa to the President of the Republic, as he believed that Portugal’s political future could not pass through a “secretariat solution”.
“This was what was most needed for an Italian solution,” he declared, accusing the PS of “thinking it had all this in its hands.”
PAN delegate, Inês de Sousa Real, also criticized the nomination of Mário Centeno’s name, stressing that the party was always against the so-called “revolving doors”.
Chega’s president also accused the governor of the Bank of Portugal of not being independent to lead the institution.
“An absolute mistake,” he said, adding that “it shows that Mário Centeno was in fact never an independent technician, but always someone linked to the socialist machine.”
For the PS, parliament leader Eurico Brilhante Dias defended that “every responsible Portuguese” must take up the challenge to help the country.
“If Mário Centeno were asked to lead a government, I expect he would accept it responsibly. To say that, given the circumstances the country is in, he would not accept a task that is for the benefit of all does not seem responsible. me,” he thought.
Speaking to the Financial Times newspaper on Sunday, the governor of the Bank of Portugal stated that he had “received an invitation from the President and the Prime Minister to reflect and consider the possibility of leading the government” and that he was “far from of a decision”.
A claim that was quickly refuted by the President of the Republic.
Afterwards, Mário Centeno acknowledged on Monday that he had not been invited by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to succeed António Costa as prime minister. The governor of the Bank of Portugal wrote on the website of the entity he heads that it was Costa who invited him to “think about the conditions” that could allow him to assume leadership of the government and that this invitation was “the result of the discussions that the Prime Minister had with the President of the Republic”.
Source: DN
