Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, who has resigned and is still in office until elections in March, can still play a role in European politics, Spanish Prime Minister and Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday, adding that he believes Costa’s party is still set to win the upcoming elections, Euractiv reports.
Sanchez also said he knows Nuno Santos, recalling that the latter was a minister and that they met at Portuguese-Spanish summits and exchanged messages.
The Spanish Prime Minister has also said that he believes the PS party, led by Pedro Nuno Santos, will win the next Portuguese legislative elections on 10 March.
On 11 November, days after Costa’s resignation, Sanchez called his Portuguese counterpart a “great socialist” during the Socialist Party of Europe (PES) congress in Malaga. Pedro Sánchez told the plenary session of the PES congress:
Allow me in my first words in this speech to send a hug on behalf of the European socialist family to a great socialist, a great comrade, António Costa.
Costa was investigated by the prosecutor’s office (MP) of the Supreme Court after suspects in the lithium, green hydrogen and Sines data centre case invoked the prime minister’s name to unblock the proceedings.
On the day of his resignation, Costa denied that he had committed “any illegal or reprehensible act”. Following Costa’s resignation, the PS elected Nuno Santos as its new secretary general in primaries last weekend.
Early parliamentary elections in Portugal will be held on 10 March 2024.
