António Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal since 2015, resigned this Tuesday after being implicated in an investigation related to influence peddling, corruption and subterfuge in energy projects. Costa presented his resignation to the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, during his second visit to his official residence in Belém, in less than four hours, when it was already known that the Supreme Court had opened a separate investigation to clarify the role of the Prime Minister in the concession of two lithium mining sites in Montalegre and Covas do Barroso and a green hydrogen production project in Sines. Costa said that “of course I submitted my resignation” and that he was leaving “with a clear conscience.”
In his press statement at the São Bento Palace, which had been raided by police hours earlier, Costa pointed out that “the dignity” of the position was incompatible with the opening of an investigation by the Supreme Court. “My duty is also to preserve the dignity of democratic institutions,” he emphasized. The two thoughts he repeated during his speech, which also included some questions from the press, were that he knew nothing about the acts considered suspicious, but that the simple announcement by the General Prosecutor’s Office (Prosecution Office) was against him would invalidate him from continuing to lead the government. “I am not above the law, if there is a suspicion it should be investigated,” he said, after piling on the “pride” of having strengthened judicial means to fight corruption. “I am calm in the judgment of my conscience, not only in relation to illegal actions, but also in relation to reprehensible ones,” he stressed.
The resignation of António Costa, accepted by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is now leading to great political uncertainty in the country. The head of state has the power to dissolve the Assembly of the Republic and call early elections, but could also ensure the continuity of the legislative period by appointing a new prime minister. Costa remains in office in the meantime.
The shock that triggered the resignation of António Costa in a few hours began this Tuesday morning in Lisbon with the arrest of two people from his inner circle for irregularities in the concession for the exploitation of lithium deposits and green hydrogen projects. Vítor Escária, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and businessman Diogo Lacerda Machado, a great friend of Costa’s who in the past had entrusted him with strategic missions such as the nationalization of the Portuguese airline TAP, were arrested early in the morning.
Both arrests were made to avoid the risk of escape, continuation of criminal activity and alteration of judicial investigations aimed at clarifying whether crimes of subterfuge, passive and active corruption and influence peddling were committed. Escária and Lacerda will go to court in the next few hours.
In parallel, the Public Security Police carried out around 42 searches, including the Prime Minister’s official residence in São Bento Palace, the Ministries of Infrastructure and Environment and Climate Change, the Sines Municipal Chamber, several public organizations and 17 apartments and five law offices. The Attorney General’s Office has declared Infrastructure Minister João Galamba and Portuguese Environment Agency CEO Arguidos (official suspects in the Portuguese trial). In addition, the mayor of Sines, the socialist Nuno Mascarenhas, and two businessmen from the company Start Campus, which promoted a project in Sines, were also arrested during the operation.
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A few hours later, prosecutors announced in a statement that the prime minister was the subject of a separate Supreme Court investigation over his role in promoting energy transition-related businesses. “During the course of the investigation, findings were also made that suspects were invoking the name and authority of the Prime Minister and that he intervened in this context to declassify proceedings,” the note said.
Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa in Parliament on March 22nd. Horacio Villalobos (Corbis/Getty Images)
This announcement was the trigger for the resignation of António Costa, who met Rebelo de Sousa twice. The first case occurred after the search and arrest of his chief of staff, the second after the communication from the Public Prosecutor’s Office announcing the investigation against him, which was distributed after the meeting in Belém between the Portuguese head of state and the lawyer General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, who spearheaded the investigation.
The Social Democratic Party (PSD, center-right), which leads the opposition, has called an emergency meeting of its permanent commission this afternoon. At the end, an official statement is expected from its President Luís Montenegro. For his part, the leader of the Liberal Initiative, Rui Rocha, called for the resignation of Costa as Prime Minister due to the “seriousness” of the suspicions affecting his inner circle and, if this does not happen, the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic, a power that the country’s president has and which would lead to new elections. André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party, demanded the immediate dismissal of Minister João Galamba and a statement from Costa to the country.
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The operation is part of an investigation by the Central Investigative and Criminal Police, which began at the end of 2019 after an anonymous complaint, to determine whether Portuguese companies (EDP, Galp and REN) were favored in the exploitation of a green hydrogen in Sines, the large industrial center around around the port, which is being converted from the polluting factories of the past to decarbonized ones. The first project to export green hydrogen to Holland was 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 examines the lithium mining concessions in Montalegre.
Irregularities plague the other major lithium mining project at Covas do Barroso, just a few kilometers from the border with Galicia, which received approval from the Portuguese environmental agency this year despite nearly a thousand allegations being made against and from a report to the contrary by a UN rapporteur. The site is also the only Portuguese enclave declared a World Heritage Site by the FAO. The Environment Agency gave the green light to British company Savannah Lithium’s project in May, although it acknowledged in its report that it would jeopardize the United Nations agency’s declaration. “The direct or indirect impacts, including residual impacts, caused by the high project pressure on the area may jeopardize the classification as a World Agricultural Heritage Site.” It is also assumed that there is no compatibility and no relevant possibility for landscape integration of the project into the area exists,” the Portuguese agency noted in its statement.
The investigation into alleged irregularities in concessions presented as essential to the energy transition concerns both the current environment minister, 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 has been under question for months over his handling of the political crisis surrounding TAP airline, which led to him having to testify before 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.ANTONIO PEDRO SANTOS (EFE)
The Attorney General’s Office confirmed at the beginning of January that an investigation into transactions related to lithium and green hydrogen was ongoing under judicial confidentiality. When asked about this process, Minister Galamba replied: “This absurd process has never been heard of, precisely because it is absurd and empty,” Público recalled this Tuesday.
As a result of this operation, the communications of former Environment Minister João Pedro Matos Fernández were intercepted by court order. Prime Minister António Costa was recorded in four of the several wiretapped 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 deals and the possibility of raising community funds billions Investors, according to the weekly newspaper Expresso.
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