Following the Court of Appeal’s decision on the Operation Influencer case, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, expressed on Wednesday his conviction that António Costa is closer to Portugal in the European Council. This position comes after the court concluded that the suspicions and “allusions” directed at the former prime minister “were never realized”.
“I reiterate in a different way a previous comment, which is more political than legal: I have the feeling that the presence of a Portuguese person at the European Council this coming autumn in Brussels is becoming increasingly more likely”, declared Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa this Wednesday on Friday afternoon, cited by Expresso.
Costa, remember, remains one of the most prominent names for the European position, having received praise from both Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. The current Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, suggested the possibility of Portugal supporting Costa’s candidacy for the position, although he has not yet confirmed this support.
“I am not going to comment on justice decisions, but I repeat in another way a comment I have already made that is more political”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, giving this indication of a strong probability of there being a Portuguese person on the European Council.
In December 2023, the President of the Republic wished that the former prime minister, António Costa, “was in a position to have a place in Europe” as president of the European Council.
What the ruling says
The Lisbon Court of Appeal released a ruling within the scope of Operation Influencer, which led to the dismissal of former Prime Minister António Costa, and this Wednesday clarifies that no evidence of communication was found between Diogo Lacerda Machado and António Costa regarding the data center project in Sines.
According to the document to which CNN Portugal had access, the court explicitly stated that there is no evidence that Diogo Lacerda Machado discussed the matter with the then prime minister.
“There is no evidence in the file that the defendant ever spoke to the PM about the Datacenter (DC) construction and installation project, in Sines, by the company Start Campus (SC); nor with his friend António Costa (AC). As he never invoked the name of the PM, or his friend AC, in any of the many dozens, or even hundreds, of work meetings in which he participated with the Board of Directors and teams of SC employees, with other companies, suppliers of goods and services for that, and with different public authorities, national and European Union”, reads the document.
Defeat of the MP on appeal
This Wednesday, the Lisbon Court of Appeal handed down its verdict on the appeals presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the defendants Vítor Escária and Diogo Lacerda Machado in the context of Operation Influencer, and decided against the worsening of coercive measures against the defendants, as requested by the attorneys, subjecting them only to identity and residence terms.
According to a judicial source told Expresso, the payment of the deposit was also cancelled, considering there was no strong “evidence” of the crime of influence peddling.
Thus, as the Lisbon Relation decided today, the ban on the defendants from traveling abroad (they had surrendered their passports) was also lifted, as reported by SIC Notícias.