This is too much for the Portuguese government. Tuesday, November 7, Prime Minister Antonio Costa presented his resignation after being splashed by a corruption affair. “The functions of Prime Minister are not compatible with any suspicion of my integrity. In these circumstances, I presented my resignation to the President of the Republic,” declared the head of the socialist government.
A resignation accepted a little later by the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The conservative head of state also summoned the parties represented in Parliament on Wednesday, with a view to organizing an early vote, according to a press release released by the Portuguese presidency.
The Prime Minister “surprised”
The situation got worse by the hour for the socialist Prime Minister. On Tuesday morning, searches were carried out in the official residence of Antonio Costa, in several homes, in ministries and law offices. The case involving the Portuguese Prime Minister concerns, according to the prosecution, suspicions of “embezzlement, active and passive corruption of political office holders and influence peddling” in the context of the allocation of resource exploitation licenses natural and infrastructure.
The investigators are more specifically interested in the granting of licenses for “lithium mining exploration” in the north of Portugal and “a project to produce energy from hydrogen”. A “project to build a data center from the company Start Campus” in Sines, about a hundred kilometers south of Lisbon, is also on the radar of Portuguese justice.
At the beginning of the afternoon, a press release from the public prosecutor’s office indicated that “the name and authority of the Prime Minister were also cited by the suspects” during the investigation. Suspected of having himself intervened “to unblock procedures” in the context of this affair, Antonio Costa will be “the subject of an independent investigation”, again according to the prosecution.
An announcement which pushed the head of government to resign, saying he was “surprised” by the opening of this investigation. At the same time, the Portuguese justice system issued “arrest warrants” against the chief of staff of the Socialist Prime Minister, the mayor of Sines and two administrators of Start Campus.
One more scandal for the socialist government
Also this Tuesday, Portuguese justice announced the indictment of the Portuguese Minister of Infrastructure Joao Galamba, as well as that of the president of the board of directors of the Portuguese Environmental Protection Agency (APA). The APA announced at the beginning of September that it had granted the green light, under certain conditions, to a second project in the country for the mining of lithium, a metal used for the manufacture of batteries and essential to the energy transition.
Portugal, which holds the first reserves of lithium in Europe, is already the main producer, although its production is currently used entirely for ceramics and glassware. A first lithium mine project also obtained, under conditions, authorization from the APA last May. Mining projects contested by environmental NGOs and part of the local population of this rural region.
This new affair therefore once again amplifies criticism of the socialist government of Antonio Costa, which has faced multiple scandals since its large electoral victory on January 30, 2022. One of the most notable is “TAPgate “, named after the public airline TAP.
The affair broke out almost a year ago following revelations about the payment of severance pay of 500,000 euros to a director of the company. She then took control of the air traffic control company and landed a few months later as Secretary of State for the Treasury. More than a dozen ministers and secretaries of state then left their posts because of this affair.