The Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, today presented his resignation to the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in the midst of an investigation into alleged irregularities in the government's management of lithium and hydrogen extraction projects.
Since this morning, a total of 40 searches have been carried out throughout the country, including at Costa's official residence, the offices of the prime minister's chief of staff and the ministries of Environment and Infrastructure, as well as other public organizations and homes of several members of the government. In the operation, which has mobilized 140 police officers, crimes of prevarication, influence peddling and corruption, among other economic-financial crimes, are being investigated.
In a statement from the public ministry (prosecutor's office) issued this morning, it had already been announced that the socialist prime minister would be investigated by the Supreme Court of Justice, after several suspects declared that the leader had intervened in the investigated projects. Costa finally announced his resignation in a televised statement, after meeting for the second time that day with President Rebelo, who accepted his resignation.
"I am not going to run again for the position of prime minister. It is a stage of life that has ended," Costa said, adding that "criminal proceedings are rarely quick. I would not wait for criminal proceedings to conclude." to draw conclusions."
“I close this stage with a clear conscience. It is incompatible with the exercise of the role of prime minister to be under criminal suspicion," Costa asserted to defend his innocence, adding: "I want to say, face to face with the Portuguese, that the practice of any illicit, or even reprehensible, act is not weighs on my conscience." The resigned prime minister has said he is "fully available to collaborate with Justice in whatever he deems necessary to know the whole truth, whatever the matter may be."
President Rebelo de Sousa issued a note informing that he would call a meeting of the Council of State tomorrow, Wednesday, to continue a process that must culminate with the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic.
"Following the resignation of the Prime Minister, which he accepted, the President of the Republic decided to convene the political parties represented in the Assembly of the Republic for tomorrow, Wednesday, November 8, and convene the Council of State, under the terms of Article 145. subsection a) and e), second part, will meet the day after tomorrow, Thursday, November 9, at 3 p.m., at the Belém Palace," reads the note sent by the presidency.
Among those detained by the investigation are the mayor of Sines, the socialist Nuno Mascarenhas, two directors of the company Start Campus, a lawyer hired by the same company and some politicians close to the prime minister, such as the chief of staff Vítor Escária and a consultant and friend of Costa, Lacerda Machado.
A team from the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP), the body in charge of the investigation and which requested the records, has been investigating this case since 2019 and is studying lithium and green hydrogen exploitation contracts.
Specifically, three different projects would be investigated. On the one hand there is the lithium business, in which Portugal leads production at the European level and in which the exploration concessions for this mineral in the Romano (Montalegre) and Barroso (Boticas) deposits are being analyzed. As for green hydrogen, it is a million-dollar project, already canceled, for a hydrogen power plant in the municipality of Sines that would have favored the "EDP/Galp/REN" consortium. In Sines, the construction project of a data center developed in the Industrial and Logistics Zone of Sines by the company Start Campus is also being investigated.
In the hours before António Costa's resignation, several deputies had already condemned this new scandal. Rui Rocha, the leader of the Liberal Initiative (IL) party, and André Ventura, a deputy for the far-right Chega party, had called for Costa's resignation. For Inês de Sousa Real, deputy of the PAN (People Animals Nature) "this is a new blow to citizens' trust in politics and in what transparency should be in the fight against corruption."
This scandal has destroyed the already damaged image of Costa, which at the beginning of the year was affected by the crisis that generated a controversial compensation to a former leader of TAP, the Portuguese public airline.
Another of the most famous names in this case is that of Joao Galamba, Minister of Infrastructure, whose resignation was already demanded in May by the opposition parties, due to his responsibility in the protection of the TAP. In January, when the Attorney General's Office (the prosecutor's office) announced that it was investigating a case about the lithium and green hydrogen businesses, both led by Galamba, when questioned about a possible investigation, he told the newspaper Jornal de Notícias that "I had never heard of this absurd process, precisely because it is absurd and empty."
