Antonio Costa, the controversial Socialist pick for European Council president

2 months ago 9

Forced to resign last year as Portuguese prime minister over a corruption scandal, Antonio Costa has been preliminarily chosen to head the European Council, but questions remain over his suitability for the post.

Costa had long been positioned as a Socialist pick for an EU top job before he resigned on 7 November 2023 due to a corruption scandal, ‘Operation Influencer’, that hit the highest echelons of his government.

The case raised eyebrows among some EU leaders, who voiced concerns over the case just before the European Council summit on 17 June, and demanded answers from the Socialists’ top negotiators, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

However, Costa’s name was still floated as a possible candidate ahead of the informal top-job summit earlier this week.

However, at the last minute, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the biggest group in the new European Parliament, raised the issue and cited concern about Costa’s tainted reputation as a reason to oppose his nomination.

The Operation Influencer scandal pointed to potential corruption and influence-peddling in hydrogen and lithium businesses in the country.

It also involved a project for a data centre, and it led to searches in several ministries and the official residence of the then-prime minister, as well as to several arrests, including Costa’s chief of staff after investigators found €75,800 in his office.

When Costa resigned a year and a half ago, he seemed to believe his political career was over, telling a press conference that “I have already resigned as prime minister, I have already announced that I will not be a candidate for prime minister and, with the foreseeable duration of this judicial process, I will not, in all likelihood, hold any more public office”.

Investigations into Costa continue, but he has not been made a formal suspect.

Costa’s path to power

Costa quickly moved from law to socialist politics, making his debut as secretary of state and then minister for parliamentary affairs in the mid-1990s, then minister of justice, before leading the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group in the Assembly of the Republic.

He then worked briefly as a member of the European Parliament and as a vice president.

After the short stint in Brussels, he returned to Portugal as minister of internal administration in the government of former prime minister José Socrates, who was arrested in 2014 on suspicion of corruption and is still facing trial.

In 2014, Costa criticised José Seguro, the previous secretary-general of the party, for winning the European elections by what Costa called “a very small margin” and applied pressure to hold elections for the post of secretary-general of the Socialist Party.

After winning these elections, Costa ran as leader of the socialist party in Portugal’s 2015 legislative elections but lost.

Crafty mediation techniques

Even though Costa lost the 2015 elections, he used his successful negotiation skills and compromise-building to forge an alliance between opposition parties (the socialist party, the far-left Communist Party, and the Left Bloc Group), that would allow him to topple the government in place and take over.

That year, he became prime minister.

The first terms of this Costa government were marked by scandal, such as the Tancos arms theft, which led to the resignation of then-minister of defence Azeredo Lopes. In 2017, deadly wildfires led to the resignation of then-minister of internal administration Constança Urbano de Sousa.

Costa’s government was also marked by the number of government members who were part of the same family, known as the ‘family gate’.

In 2022, Costa was re-elected as prime minister with an absolute majority, but in just 16 months, the government witnessed 13 resignations, including several caused by the national airline company TAP scandal.

While TAP was under the authority of the former minister of infrastructure and housing, Pedro Nuno Santos (current secretary-general of the Socialist party), TAP gave an illegal €500,000 severance package to a board member who joined the government shortly after.

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Alice Taylor]