This Sunday, whoever wins the legislative elections in Portugal, the era of socialist António Costa ends after eight years at the head of the Government.
An early and abrupt end, decided by the prime minister himself on November 7, when he presented his resignation in response to the investigation opened by the Supreme Court to clarify whether he had committed any irregularity in the support of several business projects. .
Four months later, the court has still not clarified whether or not there are indications to keep Costa in a kind of legal limbo that does not allow him to defend himself or have control of his political future.
This is a summary of the legacy that he leaves after a mandate that began in 2015 with a motion of censure that united the left around the socialist and that ended with an absolute majority full of shocks.
“These two years have been more difficult to manage than the pandemic,” Costa himself admitted this Friday, during a speech in Lisbon, in which he supported the socialist candidate Pedro Nuno Santos.
The ethics lesson.
The resignation of Costa, who now serves as acting prime minister, was a rare example of the sudden assumption of political responsibility.
Without being accused or charged, the prime minister announced that he was leaving because he considered the opening of an investigation against him by the Supreme Court “incompatible” with the dignity of the position, to which was added the arrest of his chief of staff, Vítor Escária, who kept 75,000 euros in the official office.
Costa said that he had a clear conscience, but that “obviously” he had to resign.
The investigation is still underway, although the investigating judge deflated some of the prosecutors' work.
This process currently blocks Costa's aspirations to run for office in Brussels.
Meanwhile, the prime minister has enrolled in a postgraduate course at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Lisbon on litigation, mediation and arbitration.
The father of
geringonça
.
The Portuguese left had never joined forces to collaborate in the government until 2015, when the Social Democratic Party (PSD, center-right) won the elections without an absolute majority.
The reversal of the austerity imposed between 2011 and 2014 by the
troika
- the institutional triad formed by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank - and firmly executed by the conservative prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, was the glue that united the left to bring António Costa to power with a motion of censure supported by the Bloco de Esquerda and the Portuguese Communist Party.
“The
geringonça
[as that parliamentary alliance was known] was a political skill, without a doubt António Costa's greatest virtue, which had great costs for the country.
It is impossible to reform a country subjected to two parties like the PCP and the Bloco.
The coalition was also negative for them, who have stopped attracting the protest vote.
For this reason, I partly blame the
geringonça
for the birth of a political force like Chega, whose threat was encouraged by the PS itself more than any other,” reflects Bruno Vieira Amaral, writer and journalist for
Radio Observador
.
He considers that Costa has not had “a true project for the development and transformation of the country.”
António Costa with the socialist candidate, Pedro Nuno Santos, during a rally in Setúbal.Pedro Nunes (REUTERS)
The economy is doing well
.
From the first minute, António Costa decided that he would not deviate even one millimeter from the lane of
contas certas
, the budgetary control policy that has allowed Portugal to reduce its public debt to 100% of GDP in 2023. A consolidation that international agencies applaud with improvements in the country's rating and criticized by those who see this policy as a brake on investment in public services.
In eight years it has gone from being an economy that worried Europe to showing stability and good progress.
The unemployment rate is at 6.6% and inflation is at 2.3%.
“In these eight years, employment, salaries, pensions and exports have grown.
Our public finances are stronger and on the social side, income inequalities and the population at risk of poverty have decreased. I consider that they have been eight good years in which, in addition, we have faced a pandemic, a war and a crisis of inflation,” summarizes Pedro Siza Vieira, former Minister of Economy between 2018 and 2022.
Holes in the welfare state
.
Although public spending on health and education grew during António Costa's time, the current situation is critical, especially due to the lack of professionals.
The biggest protests that the socialist Government faced have been from health personnel and teachers.
In the National Health System they have promoted a reform that is taking its first steps and have also reduced the precariousness of interim teachers, but many demands remain that seek to suppress decisions carried out by the
troika
.
Housing is the other big deficit.
The Portuguese have seen that the price to rent or buy a house has grown well above the evolution of their salaries.
“We don't put our heads in the sand thinking that everything is fine, but the reforms are underway,” Costa admitted this Friday.
“But we have managed to round the Cape of Storms and now it is necessary to go to the Cape of Good Hope, not retrace the path we have started and finish what we have started,” he stressed during a luncheon rally.
The green energy revolution and pending trains
.
António Costa saw adaptation to the climate crisis as an opportunity to turn his country into a producer of renewable energy.
In eight years, Portugal has made a gigantic leap: 61% of electricity consumption in 2023 was supplied with renewable sources.
For the expansion of these industries, environmental controls have been lowered and contested projects such as open-pit lithium mines have sometimes been encouraged.
On the contrary, the railway revolution as a sustainable transport commitment remains pending, although Costa is leaving after having called the first tender for a section of the high-speed line between Lisbon and Porto.
In the opinion of Xoan Vázquez Mao, general secretary of Eixo Atlántico, which includes 42 local institutions from Portugal and Spain, “he has been the prime minister with whom we have achieved the greatest progress in railway matters, not only in Portugal, but also in Spain .
With it we managed to recover and electrify the Miño line and today there is an Intercities from Valença to Lisbon.
In addition, the high-speed line between Lisbon and Porto is in the pipeline, which will then reach A Coruña and Ferrol, with a connection to the Sá Carneiro airport, as we demand.”
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