Portugal’s PM has had a terrible week — and it’s only getting worse

 

Portugal’s PM has had a terrible week — and it’s only getting worse

 

Luís Montenegro is attempting to get a handle on the storms wreaking havoc across the country at the same time a fraud probe involving his summer home expands.

 

February 13, 2026 12:20 pm CET

By Aitor Hernández-Morales

 https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-pm-luis-montenegro-storms-crisis-fraud/

Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro is under pressure over his government’s handling of the storms that have wreaked havoc across the country for several weeks.

 

At least 16 people have died as a result of the fierce cyclones that have battered the Atlantic nation since late January, destroying homes and leaving thousands without power for days.

 

A stretch of the A1 motorway that serves as the country’s main north-south artery was wiped out after a dike collapsed this week, and railway service between Lisbon and Porto is suspended. Coimbra, home to one of Europe’s oldest universities, is being threatened by major floods that could force the evacuation of up to 9,000 residents.

 

Growing anger over the lack of preventative measures taken ahead of the storms, as well as the delays in emergency response and recovery operations, prompted Interior Minister Maria Lúcia Amaral to step down on Tuesday. “I no longer possess the personal and political conditions necessary to hold the position,” she wrote in her resignation letter, which President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa promptly accepted.

 

Opposition parties on both sides of the aisle seized on Amaral’s sudden exit to criticize the country’s center-right prime minister. André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party, accused Montenegro of having “lost control of his own government,” while the Socialist Party’s José Luís Carneiro said the resignation proved the administration had “failed in its response to this emergency.”

 

Montenegro himself has provisionally taken up Amaral’s portfolio to oversee the crisis response operations personally. While the move is aimed at underscoring the prime minister’s commitment to addressing the disaster, it is also politically risky, as he is now directly linked to the handling of the calamity.

 

In a bid to calm citizens, Montenegro announced Thursday its government will use EU recovery funds to reconstruct devastated communities, and deliver a new water and forest management plan, he said, that will prepare the country for the extreme weather it will face over the next quarter-century.

 

Fraud investigation

But the prime minister’s messaging was undermined on Friday, when he was linked to an ongoing tax fraud probe.

 

According to Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso, prosecutors have been investigating alleged discrepancies between the cost of Montenegro’s summer house and the invoices issued by his contractors since last fall.

 

Although he has not been named as a subject in the probe, the news is an unpleasant distraction for the prime minister. Montenegro did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on the investigation.

 

Last year, the prime minister called snap elections after an unrelated corruption probe involving his family’s businesses led to him losing a confidence vote in parliament. That case was ultimately shelved by prosecutors, who found no evidence of criminal activity.

 

The house in question in the latest probe was already the subject of a criminal investigation in 2024, when prosecutors raised doubts over the tax breaks the prime minister had claimed. That case was dropped after authorities concluded Montenegro was legally entitled to the benefits.