Everything Marcelo said during four hours at a controversial dinner with foreign correspondents in Portugal – Politics

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, met with foreign journalists for four hours, at dinner in a hotel in Lisbon, on Tuesday night. During this meeting, he did not shy away from commenting on any subject he was asked about. They asked him if they could question him about everything, to which he replied “everything”.

Four controversial issues emerged from the four hours, including the comparisons he made between the former prime minister, António Costa, and the current prime minister, Luís Montenegro. He mentioned that both are “slow”, but that António Costa is “oriental”.

“He [Montenegro] is a person who comes from a deep, urban-rural country, with rural behaviors. He is very curious, difficult to understand, precisely because of this. He is completely independent, non-influenceable and improvisational”, he said of the PSD leader. “Montenegro is not oriental, but it is slow, it has the time of a rural country, although urbanized”, added Marcelo.

The pain of having cut ties with his son

At the same meeting, Marcelo revealed that he cut ties with his son due to the case of the Portuguese-Brazilian twins treated at Santa Maria Hospital.

“I don’t know if I said anything there to the twins’ parents. I didn’t say anything to me. And that is unforgivable”, reveals the President of the Republic. He adds that he doesn’t speak “in general” with his son and that he feels “a lot of personal hurt” as a result.

Lucília Gago and Operation Influencer

Regarding Operation Influencer and the Attorney General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, the Head of State says that the PGR had “a Machiavellian act”, by making the former Prime Minister, António Costa, the Government and the Assembly of Republic.

“If the prosecutor, with the same promptness with which she had taken the initiative to open an investigation also involving the Prime Minister a month before the Portuguese found out… I discovered, a few weeks later, that she had opened an investigation against third parties and in what day? On November 7th. Which I thought was Machiavellian. Kind of balance, sophisticated balance. Very well… it opened, it opened”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

However, on Wednesday afternoon, in statements to journalists, he revealed that he “never said that”.

“I was very careful with what I said in this regard, not talking about the personal characteristics, nor should I talk, of the Attorney General of the Republic”, he says.

Crimes committed in the Colonial Era

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa referred to Portugal as a country responsible for the mistakes of the past, highlighting that crimes such as colonial massacres had “costs”. He also says that the country “assumes full responsibility for the crimes committed during slavery in Africa and the colonial era.

“We have to pay the costs. Are there actions that were not punished and those responsible were not arrested? There are goods that were stolen and were not returned. Let’s see how we can repair this”, he added.

António Costa in Europe

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also said that he believes that António Costa could be the next president of the European Council. He also said that the Socialist Party will be the second most voted force in the European elections in June, held on the 9th, “unless there is a tsunami”.