(Lisbon) In power since 2015, Portuguese socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa resigned suddenly on Tuesday, carried away by a corruption affair which led to the indictment of one of his ministers and his chief of staff.
“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,” Mr. Costa, one of the rare socialists at the head of a European government, declared to the press.
This resignation was accepted by the head of state, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, according to the Portuguese presidency.
The latter immediately summoned the representatives of the parties elected to Parliament on Wednesday then the Council of State on Thursday, as required by the Constitution before being able to dissolve Parliament and call early elections.
“The President of the Republic will address the nation immediately after the meeting of the Council of State” to announce his decision, adds the press release from the Portuguese presidency.
The scandal involving Antonio Costa concerns, according to the public prosecutor’s office, suspicions of “embezzlement, active and passive corruption of political office holders and influence peddling” in the context of the allocation of lithium and mineral exploration licenses. hydrogen production.
During the investigation, “the name and authority of the Prime Minister” were “cited by the suspects,” the public prosecutor said in a statement on Tuesday.
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.
During his speech to the press, Mr. Costa said he was “surprised” by the opening of this investigation.
The investigators are more specifically interested in the granting of licenses for “lithium mine exploration” in the north of Portugal, in “a project for the production of energy from hydrogen” and in “a project for the construction of “a data center of the company Start Campus” in Sines, about a hundred kilometers south of Lisbon.
Tuesday morning, searches were carried out in the official residence of the Prime Minister, in several homes, in ministries and law offices.
Taking into account the elements collected by the investigators, the “risk of flight and continuation of criminal activity”, justice issued “arrest warrants” against Mr. Costa’s chief of staff, the mayor de Sines and two administrators from Start Campus.
The Portuguese Minister of Infrastructure Joao Galamba was indicted, as was the president of the board of directors of the Portuguese Environmental Protection Agency (APA).
Repeated scandals
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.
A first lithium mine project also obtained, under conditions, authorization from the APA in May.
These mining projects are contested by environmental NGOs and part of the population of this rural region.
Coming to power in 2015, Mr. Costa first governed as part of an unprecedented alliance between the socialists, the radical left and the communists.
After winning the 2019 elections, he strengthened his position during a new election in January 2022 which allowed him to obtain an absolute majority for the first time.
But Mr. Costa has since seen his popularity plummet due to repeated scandals.
One of the most notable is “TAPgate”, named after the state-owned airline.
More than a dozen ministers and secretaries of state have already left their posts due to this affair which broke out following the payment of severance pay of 500,000 euros to a TAP administrator, who then took over orders of the air traffic control company before landing a few months later as Secretary of State for the Treasury.