President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa met with foreign journalists for four hours during a dinner at a Lisbon hotel on Tuesday evening. During this meeting, he did not shy away from commenting on any topic he was asked about. They asked him if they could ask him everything, to which he replied “everything.”
Four controversial issues emerged during the four hours, including comparisons he drew between former Prime Minister António Costa and current Prime Minister Luis Montenegro. He mentioned that both are “slow” but Antonio Costa is “oriental”.
“He [Montenegro] This is a person who comes from a deep, urban and rural country, with a rural demeanor. This is very curious, and that is why it is difficult to understand. He is completely independent, non-influential and improvisational,” he said of the SDP leader. “Montenegro is not eastern, but it is slow, it has the time of a rural country, although urbanized,” added Marcelo.
The pain of breaking ties with my son
At the same meeting, Marcelo revealed that he had broken off relations with his son because of the incident involving the Portuguese-Brazilian twins being treated at the Santa Maria Hospital.
“I don’t know if I said anything to the parents of the twins. I didn’t say anything. And this is unforgivable,” admits the president of the republic. He adds that he doesn’t talk to his son “in general” and feels “a lot of personal resentment” as a result.
Lucilia Gago and representative of Operation Influencer
Regarding Operation Man of Influence and the Attorney General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, the head of state says that the PGR committed a “Machiavellian act” by installing former Prime Minister António Costa as government and Assembly of the Republic.
“If the prosecutor, with the same promptness with which she took the initiative to open an investigation involving the Prime Minister, a month before the Portuguese learned about it… I discovered, a few weeks later, that she had opened an investigation against a third party and on what day? November 7. It was, I thought, a kind of balance, a sophisticated balance. Well, it has opened, it has opened,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Souza.
However, in statements to reporters Wednesday afternoon, he said he “never said that.”
“I was very careful in my statements on this matter, without talking about the personal characteristics of the prosecutor general of the republic, and I should not talk about it,” he says.
Crimes committed during the colonial era
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called Portugal a country responsible for the mistakes of the past, stressing that crimes such as colonial massacres have a “cost.” It also said the country “accepts full responsibility for crimes committed during slavery in Africa and the colonial era.”
“We have to pay the costs. Are there actions that were not punished and the perpetrators were not arrested? There are goods that were stolen and not returned. Let’s see how we can correct this,” he added.
Antonio Costa in Europe
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also said he believes António Costa could become the next president of the European Council. He also said the Socialist Party would be the second-largest force in June’s European elections on the 9th, “if there is no tsunami.”