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Soriek  6mo ago (text post)   1135 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 25

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Portugal

The Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa has resigned as of Tuesday following a corruption investigation into lithium ion business deals (not his first scandal either).

The prosecutor's office said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that five people had been detained as part of the investigation, including Vitor Escaria, Costa's chief of staff, whose offices had been searched along with several government buildings.

It also said Infrastructure Minister Joao Galamba and the president of the environment agency APA, Nuno Lacasta, were formal suspects and will appear before a judge… Prosecutors are investigating alleged corruption and influence peddling in the Barroso and Monatelgre lithium exploration concessions in northern Portugal, a project for a hydrogen plant in the port of Sines and a mega data centre investment there. They said they had become aware that the suspects used Costa's name and authority to "unblock procedures" related to the deals and the Supreme Court would look into Costa's possible role in the deals.

Currently his (actually center left) Socialist Party still has a majority in Congress and apparently doesn’t have to call new elections, though it would probably be the democratic thing to do. There’s also apparently a major budget bill due next month that they may say would be irresponsible if the government was thrown into electoral chaos while it needed to be passed (and they may be right). If they do hold elections, parties to watch out for are their traditional center right ally the Social Democrats1 and the far right Chega, which has shot forward in popularity in recent years.

1You might remember a Scott post on how, apparently as a relic of their right wing dictatorship, basically every party in Portugal is named some variety of socialist/social, including the free market, conservative ones.

Anyone know how impactful this in general on the functioning of their government? Specifically, I'm wondering if this could cause the NHR tax benefits (https://globalnomad.guide/nhr-no-more-portugals-tax-regime-redesign-impact-on-remote-workers/) vote (supposedly part of their budget vote Nov 29?) to be delayed

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