The Social Democrats demand that António Costa clarify “totally” and “as soon as possible” the questions raised regarding the alleged interference of the President of the Government in the Eurobic/BPI files, the links with Isabel dos Santos and the way in which the sale of Banif, which will have been carried out without the knowledge of the then governor of the Bank of Portugal, Carlos Costa.
The intention was formalized this Wednesday, in the Assembly of the Republic, by Joaquim Miranda Sarmento. The PSD parliamentary leader listed the set of 12 questions sent to António Costa as a result of the revelations made in the book “O Governador”, by journalist Luís Rosa, which includes, among other things, the direct testimony of Carlos Costa.
As The Observer explained here, the PSD invested in this form of pressure to the detriment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry, as Enough claimed. Meanwhile, André Ventura has already accused Luís Montenegro of seeking “delaying maneuvers” to avoid the shrapnel that could result for the Social Democrats from a new commission of inquiry into bank management.
Faced with the challenge of commenting on Ventura’s words, Miranda Sarmento went to the point. “Chega has that practice of throwing mud on the discussion. We do not go after controversies. We are going after the facts and what matters to the Portuguese,” he said.
In this block of 12 questions, the Social Democrats want to know, among other things, if António Costa tried to condition Carlos Costa and prevent the then governor of the Bank of Portugal from removing Isabel dos Santos from the Eurobic administration.
PSD asks 12 questions to the President of the Government on the dismissal of Isabel dos Santos and the Banif process
In the case of Banif, which concentrates most of the PSD’s attention, the party led by Luís Montenegro demands to know if António Costa, then in his first term as Prime Minister, cooked up the resolution and sale of the bank to the Spanish from Santander.
In the book “O Governador”, Carlos Costa accuses António Costa of sending a letter to the European Central Bank during the sale process that precipitated the fall of that institution. The former governor also accuses the then minister Mário Centeno of negotiating the sale of the bank with Santander – in both cases, Costa and Centeno would have acted despite Carlos Costa.
According to the ex-governor’s testimony, that letter, sent on December 14, 2015, represented a “very significant worsening of the distrust towards the European authorities” and “affected the surveillance of Portuguese banks by the Single Supervisory Mechanism, both in terms of trust and capital requirements and qualitative supervision requirements”.
In this book, Jorge Tomé, then president of Banif, establishes a possible cause-effect relationship between the news broadcast by TVI on December 13 (“Everything is ready for the bank to close”) and that same letter –source of this information It was never disclosed, but the news resulted in the loss of 984 million euros and further impairment of the bank.
The thesis that is now gaining strength is that the Government of António Costa fueled a simulation around the sale of Banif when, confidentially, it informed Brussels that the bank was already in the process of liquidating and selling Santander to the Spanish.
PSD does not advance with commission of investigation to the bank against António Costa
Source: Observadora
