Montenegro removes from Costa’s answers that “confusion reigns in the government of Portugal.”

The PSD president classified this Thursday as “another episode of institutional degradation” that the prime minister’s responses about SIS had not yet reached parliament and felt that “there is confusion in the Portuguese government”.

Speaking to reporters at the end of the opening of the 14th National Mercy Congress, which was also attended by the President of the Republic, Luis Montenegro repeated what the leader of the social democratic group, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, had said in Parliament.

“I have not yet received these answers, nor did the PSD parliamentary group, I regret that in answering the questions addressed to the Prime Minister through the Assembly of the Republic, there is another episode of the institutional degradation of Portuguese political life”, criticized the PSD president, noting that the entire press already had access to them.

Luis Montenegro said he deeply regrets “this course of action, which is accompanied by an almost provocative style of increasing institutional degradation”, which he believes the government has promoted in recent months.

“Therefore, I will not make any comments, except in a very general way: if the answers that are sent to parliament are the same as those that are distributed in the media, confusion reigns in the Portuguese government,” he criticized.

Almost at the same time, in the Assembly of the Republic, the PSD parliamentary leader accused António Costa of “disrespecting the Parliament” and “trampling on the institutions”, since the responses to the request of the PSD had not yet been sent via this route. but which were released at 6:30 to the media.

The prime minister’s responses, released by the Lusa news agency this Thursday morning, have already been published on the government’s Internet portal, but on the parliament’s website – in the tab dedicated to “questions and requests” – there is not even a PSD question, announced on Wednesday, nor a corresponding answer. .

In the responses to which Lusa had access, the Prime Minister states that the actions of the SIS (Security Information Service) to recover a computer seized from the Ministry of Infrastructure did not require his permission and were not the result of a suggestion by his Secretary of State, Deputy António Mendonça Mendez.

PSD’s request states that “the Minister of Infrastructure stated that it was Prime Minister António Mendonça Mendes, Deputy Secretary of State, who proposed the intervention of the SIRP (Portuguese Republic Information System) / SIS” and asks “what was the basis for this proposal, when did it occur and on what conditions.”

António Costa replies that, “according to what was made public by the Minister of Infrastructure and confirmed by his head of cabinet [Eugénia Correia]the initiative to contact SIS came from the head of the cabinet of the Minister of Infrastructure, and not as a result of a suggestion from the Deputy Secretary of State to the Prime Minister”, and he reiterated that, in his opinion, “the head of the Cabinet of the Minister of Infrastructure acted correctly in the face of the security breach of classified documents”.

Asked whether he “sanctioned, approved or accepted, however tacitly, this decision”, the Prime Minister replied that he had been asked to give any permission: “As I have also publicly and repeatedly stated, I have not been and am not must be informed in advance of any action by the SIS, so I was not asked to provide any permission.”

“By the way, I believe, based on what has been said by various stakeholders, that when I spoke with the Minister of Infrastructure, SIS had already contacted Dr. Frederico Pinheiro and arranged with him for a voluntary and free return of the computer. , as he himself told the media on April 28, 29 and 30,” he adds.