PM confirms Partex CEO to coordinate economic recovery programme

Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, has asked António Costa e Silva, the CEO of Partex, an oil company controlled by the Lisbon-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, “to coordinate the preparation of the Economic Recovery Programme” for the government, to be concluded in time for the approval of a supplementary state budget.

“Professor António Costa e Silva was invited by the Prime Minister to coordinate the preparation of the Economic Recovery Program,” the prime minister’s office confirmed in a note sent to Lusa on Sunday.

According to the note, the invitation was accepted “as a civic contribution and ‘pro bono'” and Costa e Silva has been working on this mission in recent weeks, “while the members of the Government are focussed, at this stage, on the Economic and Social Stabilisation Program and the Supplementary Budget.”

The plan is for the preparatory work now being done to make it possible for the recovery programme to be ready for when the government approves the supplementary budget that is needed because of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time the minister of state, economy and digital transition, Pedro Siza Vieira, is to take over “the direction of the preparation of the Recovery Programme,” the prime minister’s office adds.

Weekly newspaper Expresso had reported on Saturday that the prime minister had invited Costa e Silva, who chairs the management board of Partex, to discuss the plan for economic recovery with ministers, and that he would also take part in meetings with representatives of trade unions and employers, as well as political parties.

But the Left Bloc (BE) and People’s Party (CDS-PP) reacted to the report by rejecting any negotiation with any figure who was not a formal part of the government.

“The prime minister is advised by those who think they can do this work – they are free to choose,” said the BE’s national coordinator, Catarina Martins, on Saturday, that there was no question of such a “paraminister” taking over talks with parties. “The Left Block, naturally, negotiates with members of the Government, as it has done until now and as the rules of good transparency of our democracy dictate.”

The CDS-PP, for its part, said that it intended to discuss the country’s economic recovery plan with “Costa e Siza”, referring to the prime minister and the minister of economy, “and not with Costa Silva”.

“To discuss the country’s economic recovery plan, CDS counts on meeting with Costa and Siza, not Costa Silva. The Prime Minister can choose with whom his ministers advise each other, but in matters of governance of the country, the CDS should speak with the Government and not with whom the Government speaks,” the party said in a statement on Saturday.

Parliament is scheduled on June 19 to give the first reading to the first legislation to amend the State Budget for 2020, relating to the impact of the pandemic.

A source in the office of the secretary of state for parliamentary affairs told Lusa that the government plans to present the Supplementary Budget in parliament either on 9 June – the date on which the document is set to be approved by the cabinet – or on June 12 (since the 10th and 11th are holidays).

Worldwide the pandemic has so far claimed more than 369,000 lives and infected more than 6 million people in 196 countries and territories. Over 2.5 million patients have been considered cured.

In Portugal, 1,410 people have died out of 32,500 confirmed as infected, and there are 19,409 recovered cases, according to the Directorate-General of Health.