Pedro Nuno Santos returns to parliament today

Pedro Nuno Santos returns to Parliament on Tuesday to take over as Deputy PS, six months after he resigned from government over compensation paid to Alexandra Reis for leaving TAP.

Head of the socialist list of the circle of Aveiro in the last legislative elections, the former Minister of Infrastructure and Housing replaces Rosa Venancio in the Assembly of the Republic after six months in which he asked for a suspension of his mandate as an MP.

And he has already made it clear that upon his return he does not want to interfere in state affairs that were in his direct custody, and that he is returning to parliament without reason to complain about the lack of solidarity on the part of the prime minister. Minister Antonio Costa.

About three weeks ago, in a TAP parliamentary commission of inquiry, Pedro Nuno Santos stated: “I had and still have a good relationship with the prime minister (…) I have never felt a lack of solidarity on the part of the prime minister.”

In addition, the president of the PS parliamentary group, Eurico Brillante Diaz, in a recent interview with TSF chose to downplay the presence of Pedro Nuno Santos on the PS bench, even protesting that “he is always stronger when he welcomes a qualified party.” staff with government experience.

Disputes in government

As Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos was directly involved in two cases that most affected the internal stability of the executive branch with an absolute majority of António Costa’s votes.

The first was at the end of June last year, when a decree on the location of Lisbon’s new airport was published without prior notice to the prime minister and in direct contradiction to the guarantee he left that the choice would be made by the state. through a process aligned with the PSD.

On December 28 last year, he resigned after it became known that his Secretary of State, Hugo Mendez, accompanied the process of paying Alexandra Reis compensation of half a million euros for leaving the TAP administration.

A few weeks after his resignation, presumably after reviewing his WhatsApp messages, Pedro Nuno himself suggested that he too, after all, knew that this compensation had been paid to the former finance minister.

The Journey of Pedro Nuno Santos

Secretary General of the JS under the leadership of José Socrates in the PS, deputy since 2005, supporter and then opponent of the former leader António José Seguro, secretary of state for parliamentary affairs on the right in the first executive body of the Geringons, Pedro Nuno Santos began to position herself as a potential candidate for succeeding António Coste five years ago, at the 2018 congress.

At the political level, at various times he sought to draw ideological lines of demarcation towards the leadership of António Costa, of which only a few are highlighted here.

At the height of the campaign for the 2019 European elections, he criticized the agreements of the European socialists with the European People’s Party (EPP) and liberal forces; after the 2019 legislatures, he deplored the lack of a written agreement with the Bloc de Esquerda to form a second PS minority government; even after the last political crisis, as head of the 2022 budget, he continued to defend Kontrap as a government decision.

At PS meetings where he speaks, he usually leaves a warning to the more liberal or centre-left fighters: “The PS has two letters: P stands for party, S stands for socialist. There are no other letters in it.

PS also highlights some of his more neo-Marxist discourses, such as those in which he confronts gasping workmen and shoe bosses. Although, under other circumstances, he also praises the shoe industry’s contribution to national exports and ended his ministerial duties by advocating a partial re-privatization of TAP.