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Can António Costa be EU Council president despite
his legal woes?
The ex-prime minister of Portugal is the frontrunner
for the presidency of the European Council, but he’s still under investigation
in Lisbon.
JUNE 13,
2024 4:01 AM CET
BY AITOR
HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES
António
Costa is the clear frontrunner to be the next president of the European
Council. But the former Portuguese prime minister has one major obstacle
standing in his way: he remains the subject of an ongoing legal probe back
home.
Costa has
not been formally charged with any crime, but is under investigation as part of
the far-reaching influence-peddling probe that prompted his resignation last
November.
Prosecutors
allege that members of Costa’s government tailored legislation to benefit the
backers of a state-of-the-art data center in Sines, in the south of the county.
The then-prime minister’s name was mentioned by suspects in several wiretaps,
leading prosecutors to suspect he may have been in on the scheme. He denies any
wrongdoing.
Costa’s
legal issues do not seem to have deterred EU leaders, many of whom want to see
him succeed Charles Michel as Council president, leading meetings of the bloc’s
27 heads of state and government.
The
Portuguese politician certainly appears like an ideal candidate. He is a member
of the socialists, who came second in the EU election and want one of their own
leading the Council. He is well-liked by European presidents and prime
ministers of all stripes, and is viewed as a pleasant, fair-dealing negotiator
with the skills needed to forge complex consensus decisions.
But he
hasn’t got the job yet, and the ongoing legal probe could be brought up by
Nordic countries seeking to boost the candidacy of Danish Prime Minister Mette
Frederiksen, who is considered to be more aligned with their positions on
defense and migration.
In the
past, EU leaders managed to overlook domestic problems when choosing people for
top jobs. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was tapped for the post
while an investigative committee of the German parliament was examining whether
lucrative contracts had been awarded without proper oversight during her time
as defense minister.
But the
Qatargate cash-for-influence scandal, which mainly involved socialists from
southern Europe, raised the bar in Brussels. In the wake of European Parliament
elections in which far-right groups made major advances by campaigning against
the rot within Europe’s mainstream parties, Costa’s legal woes could be
problematic.
An ongoing investigation
The details
of the investigation into Costa remain classified, but a constant trickle of
embarrassing leaks over the past eight months has damaged the credibility of
the prosecutors handling the case.
Perhaps the
biggest was the revelation that prosecutors made an error when transcribing a
wiretap in which “António Costa” was mentioned by suspects. During a court
hearing, investigators admitted that the voices in the recording had not been
discussing the prime minister, but rather his economy minister, António Costa
Silva.
In April,
the case was further undermined when Lisbon’s Court of Appeals struck down the
coercive measures — among others, a ban on leaving the country — that the
investigating judge had imposed on some of the other defendants charged as part
of the probe.
In their
report, the appeals court judges wrote that while figures like Costa’s chief of
staff, Vítor Escária, and his personal adviser, Diogo Lacerda Machado, had
engaged in interactions that generated “a perception of opacity, promiscuity
and illegality of procedures,” the coercive measures were not justified
because, technically speaking, their actions could not be considered criminal
offenses.
The appeals
court judges dismissed the suspicions involving Costa as “speculations,” but
because the ruling only concerned the coercive measures imposed on other
defendants, prosecutors were able to press on with their investigation.
After he
stepped down as prime minister last April, Costa’s file was transferred from
the Supreme Court — the only body with the power to punish crimes committed by
Portugal’s head of government — to the Central Department of Investigation and
Criminal Action (DCIAP), which deals with civilians.
At his
request, in late May the socialist politician attended a closed-door hearing in
which he answered questions posed by the public prosecutor. The ex-prime
minister’s lawyer, João Lima Cluny, told POLITICO that no charges had been
filed against Costa during the hearing, “which suggests that the Public
Ministry, at least at this moment, has not found evidence that substantiates
that any crime has been committed.”
Lima Cluny
acknowledged that the case was ongoing. “We are waiting to hear if the case
will be archived,” he said, but admitted that there was no firm timeline for
that.
Outgoing
European Parliament Vice President Pedro Silva Perreira, a Portuguese
socialist, said there were no longer any suspicions against Costa that would
complicate his appointment to the top job.
“This
situation has been absolutely clarified,” he said. “He’s been heard by the
justice [system] and he’s not even considered a suspect or a person of
interest.”
But Rui
Gustavo, a veteran judicial reporter with Portuguese weekly Expresso, disputed
that framing, pointing out that Costa has not been cleared.
“Costa remains a suspect,” Gustavo said. “There hasn’t been any official
statement to the contrary.”
“Other than
the fact that he’s been heard by prosecutors, his situation remains the same as
before: He hasn’t been charged, but he hasn’t been cleared, either,” he
stressed.
Gustavo
added that even if prosecutors ultimately conclude there is no case against
Costa, they could take a long time to say as much. “The justice system is slow
in Portugal.”
Eddy Wax
contributed reporting.
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