In the office of António Costa, Prime Minister who now holds the infrastructure portfolio, no one makes it clear whether the TAP privatization process should continue or not. This will be left to the next term and the next government.
Contrary to what has already been decided regarding the location of the new airport, and it is clear that the decision will be transferred to the executive power arising from the elections on March 10, the Prime Minister reserves on the issue of the privatization of TAP his position. options opened. Recall: the government issued a decree privatizing the airline, sent it to the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and he then returned it to its original state, citing several reservations, namely a lack of transparency in the process. However, the impasse between Costa and Marcelo was not resolved.
From what DN has learned from government sources, the fact that the government is just weeks away from a reduction in its powers – when the head of state publishes the decree dismissing the prime minister, leaving executive power in the day-to-day administration – apparently There is room for the government to continue the privatization process, trying to negotiate with Marcelo a version of the diploma that he could promulgate. But then there is the ‘Pedro Nuno Santos issue’.
The former Minister of Infrastructure, now a candidate for the leadership of the PS, is a strong supporter of state ownership of the Portuguese airline. Pedro Nuno Santos believes it was the state that saved the company, insisting that it has already started making a profit.
Even if António Costa were to succeed in negotiating with Marcelo the promulgation of the TAP privatization decree and then decided to move the process forward, he would do so with the certainty that one of the candidates for the post of Secretary General of the PS would be against it. In fact, Costa knows that Pedro Nuno Santos is the clear favorite over José Luís Carneiro in the dispute for party leadership. In other words: privatization would be to the disadvantage of the PS candidate who could become prime minister.
For the time being, DN knows that the Prime Minister and the Head of State have not yet agreed on the fate of the sale of TAP.
History repeats itself
It is not the first time in the XXIII Constitutional Government that António Costa has been given a new ministry in addition to his duties as Prime Minister. Even before the government took office, António Costa was sworn in as Minister of Foreign Affairs on March 28, 2022, so that Augusto Santos Silva, who held the portfolio at the time, could take over as deputy and later run for election. position of President of the Assembly of the Republic, which he would eventually acquire. As for the legal procedure inherent in the fact that the Prime Minister remained at the Ministry of Infrastructure, everything is covered by Legislative Decree No. 32/2022. “The Prime Minister may temporarily exercise the powers granted to a Minister by this Decree-Law, in the event of termination of his office,” states the diploma that regulates the functioning of the government.
By becoming Minister of Infrastructure now, in the latter part of this term, António Costa inherits portfolios that have not been resolved and that even clash with ideological tirades from other parties. It concerns the privatization of TAP or the delay in the implementation of the Ferrovia 2020 plan, with a program worth 2.1 billion euros that would have been completed in 2021 and, more recently, postponed until 2025. With the fall of the government, may or may not have an end in sight. Be that as it may, it is not with a transitional Minister of Infrastructure that this second issue will be resolved, adding in addition to the retroactive effect a delay of five months until a new government is in power, with parliamentary elections on 10 will take place in March. of next year.
As for TAP, the decision, which has since been blocked twice (by Marcelo, when he vetoed the diploma and returned it to the government, due to the lack of consensus within the socialist spectrum), will have to be passed on to the next government. Managerial.
The crisis of defendants
In this scenario, can Costa tolerate another departure from the government and take on a different portfolio? When the Prime Minister resigned on November 7, “surprised” by a statement from the Public Prosecution Service confirming that criminal proceedings would be opened against him, other names in the government were brought to the attention of the Justice Department. In addition to João Galamba, accused in connection with concessions in the lithium and green hydrogen sectors, the mayor of Sines, Nuno Mascarenhas, and the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Vítor Escária, were also targeted. However, one of the names that emerged in the Public Prosecution Service’s indictment was that of the Minister of Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro.
“The strongly indicated fact regarding the meals offered under criminal resolution by the defendants Afonso Salema and Rui Oliveira Neves to the defendants João Galamba and Nuno Lacasta [presidente da Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente]like Duarte Cordeiro, is guilty of the above-mentioned type of crime of offering an unlawful advantage,” the indictment states.
With the government’s renovations still possible, it remains to be seen how António Costa would resolve other portfolios without a minister overseeing them. For the time being, Duarte Cordeiro, heard as part of the presentation of proposals for changes to the 2024 state budget, ruled out the possibility of being accused. “I am not afraid of any decision that has been taken, neither I nor my team, regarding anything at the Ministry of Environment,” the minister said, adding that he does not think he “will be made a defendant.”
No consensus on the right
If António Costa takes over the Infrastructure portfolio, there is a legal framework – for the PSD this is normal – in an extraordinary situation. “I think it is relatively normal in a situation that is not normal, namely that we have a prime minister who is resigning and a minister who has extended his stay in government beyond all limits,” the social leader said yesterday. Democrat, Luís Montenegro.
Chega’s leader, André Ventura, yesterday accused the prime minister of replacing Galamba because “no one in civil society is available to be minister of the Socialist Party”, adding that he hopes to hear from António Costa in parliament about the Infrastructure portfolio.
Source: DN
