The PSD leader considered this Monday that the prime minister’s response to TAP “is not skill, it is an escape from responsibility”, questioning whether António Costa only finds the email from former Secretary of State Hugo Mendes extremely serious.
Luís Montenegro reacted through the social network Twitter to the news from the Lusa agency this morning, which reported that the prime minister considers the email that former Secretary of State Hugo Mendes sent to the executive president of TAP about the head of State and claims that he would have forced his resignation on the spot.
“Do you just think this is very serious?? So having a meeting between the CEO, PS and the Government to prepare a hearing, having a minister and former minister not telling the truth, the Government preparing the responses from TAP, is that all normal??, he questioned the leader of the PSD.
For Luís Montenegro, “this is not skill, it is an escape from responsibility”.
António Costa responded to the Lusa agency before leaving for a two-day visit to South Korea, after being questioned about the content of the controversial e-mail from the former Secretary of State for Infrastructure, which became public in the parliamentary commission of inquiry on the management of TAP.
“Since I haven’t left yet, I am answering this question of internal politics. Each institution has its time and this is the time for the Assembly of the Republic to find out the truth, the whole truth, as I have said, hurts who hurts”, declared the leader of the executive.
António Costa said that he “did not know” that email “and, if he had known, he would have forced the minister [das Infraestruturas, Pedro Nuno Santos] to fire him, on the spot”.
“It is very serious from the point of view of the institutional relationship with the President of the Republic and unacceptable in the relationship that the Government must maintain with public companies”, he stressed.
On Tuesday, at the parliamentary commission of inquiry into TAP, the deputy from the Liberal Initiative Bernardo Blanco confronted Christine Ourmières-Widener with an exchange of emails with the then Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Hugo Mendes, about a possible change of date of a flight that had the head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, as a passenger.
In that email he sent to the executive president of TAP, the former Secretary of State for Infrastructure Hugo Mendes argued that it was important to maintain the political support of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, considering that he was the “main ally” of the Government but that could make become the “worst nightmare”.
The day after the hearing, the Presidency of the Republic stated, through a written note, that it never contacted TAP or any member of the Government to change a return flight from Mozambique in March 2022.
