Despite the case that led to his resignation and the fall of the current outgoing government, António Costa guarantees that he has no regrets about rejecting a pact proposed by former PSD leader Rui Rio for judicial reform. “My beliefs do not change depending on the circumstances,” he said in an interview with TVI tonight.

“Dr. Rui Rio’s proposals involved removing the autonomy of the Public Prosecution Service. I understand that our democracy has an enormous advantage: we have an independent Justice and an autonomous Public Prosecution Service, in which no one is above the law. As I have said several times, “I am not above the law either. This is a good guarantee for Portuguese democracy.”. It is not because circumstances have changed, nor because this or that bailiff acts incorrectly, that I no longer believe in the legal system,” the outgoing Prime Minister continued.

Regarding the events of November 7 last year, which led to his resignation, Costa said that during his first trip to Belém to meet with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, he “knew that searches were taking place” in the office of his chief of staff and, That’s whyunderstood “that I had to evaluate the conditions to be able to perform my duties, I wanted to express my doubts to the President of the Republic, I wanted to hear the opinion of the President of the Republic.”

The statement that the Public Prosecution Service has since issued was decisive for what followed, he said again. “As we know, there was very little time to hesitate because the PGR had officially raised a suspicion about me at the end of the morning. In order to protect the dignity of the position I hold, I understood that my resignation was necessary.
As I said and maintain, I have an absolutely clear conscience, but it is up to me to institutionally defend the dignity of this role,” Costa emphasizes.

“That paragraph was added to that statement to make it known publicly that there is a suspicion about the Prime Minister and even today I don’t know what the suspicion is.”, Costa added, regarding the paragraph in the PGR statement announcing the existence of an investigation involving the Prime Minister. And he said he had drawn an “immediate conclusion”: “The level of trust that citizens in democratic institutions is incompatible with an official presumption”.

Costa remains convinced that all this will end “either with a non-indictment, or with the filing, or, borderline, with an acquittal.”

The Prime Minister says he cannot guarantee that he would not have resigned if that paragraph had not been included in the PGR statement, because later “other details emerged that I was not aware of at the time”, such as the revelation of the discovery. , “the next day” of large sums of money hidden in the office of his former chief of staff, Vítor Escária, of which he guarantees that he “had no knowledge”.

For António Costa, “the PS must stand aside from this story and concentrate on the essence, which is to present the balance of these years of governance, a renewed program and a new leadership with new energy”. “You should not deal with this case, which has nothing to do with the PS. It has to do with the people who are accused, maybe it ultimately has to do with me, but it has nothing to do with the PS.”

updated

“Hurt” and with reparations to Marcelo and the PGR

It should be recalled that the Prime Minister had already stated this Monday that he was hurt by the way he was involved in a judicial investigation and left comments on the actions of the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Prosecutor -General of the Republic. the Republic, Lucília Gago, in statements to CNN Portugal.

According to António Costa, the inclusion of a paragraph in the statement from the press service of the Public Prosecution Service specifying that the Prime Minister was under investigation by the Supreme Court was “decisive” for him to request his resignation in November. 7th.

“In view of a statement in which a person, who is not just any person, the Attorney General of the Republic, intends to officially communicate to the country and the world that, in addition to everything else, a case has been opened Against the Prime Minister, I have a duty that transcends my personal dimension. There is an institutional dimension to the role of Prime Minister,” he explained.

In this sense, António Costa reiterated that today he would have done exactly the same by choosing to resign. He then proposed asking the same question to the Attorney General of the Republic and to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. “What we can do is ask whoever made the declaration, and whoever subsequently took the decision to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic, whether they would do the same, given what they know now,” he said.

When asked if he was angry about the way he was involved in this legal process, the Prime Minister replied that he was not angry, but said: “If you ask me if I am injured, then I am.”