Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said he didn’t invite Bank of Portugal Governor Mario Centeno to be the next prime minister, following last week’s unexpected resignation of Antonio Costa as premier.
Rebelo de Sousa also said he didn’t authorize anyone to contact Centeno or anybody else about an invitation to head a government, according to a statement posted on the presidency’s website on Monday.
The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Centeno told the newspaper that he had an invitation from the president and prime minister to reflect on and consider the possibility of leading the government, adding that he was “very far” from reaching a decision.
Costa resigned on Tuesday amid a probe into possible government corruption. President Rebelo de Sousa on Thursday called an early election on March 10, adding that the prime minister’s resignation will formally take effect in early December. Costa, who’s been prime minister since 2015, said that he’d offered the president an alternative to early elections, consisting of a government led by central bank Governor Centeno.
As the president picked the other option, “there was never a definitive answer from Mario Centeno,” Costa said on Saturday night.
Earlier on Saturday, Eco had reported that the Bank of Portugal’s ethics commission will meet to assess Centeno’s conduct after he was proposed by the outgoing prime minister as a possible successor in government. Separately, Jornal de Negocios reported that an initial assessment was that Costa’s invitation to Centeno didn’t seem to violate the central bank’s code of conduct in terms of possible conflicts of interest.
A Bank of Portugal spokesperson said the ethics commission will meet this afternoon.
Center-right party PSD, the biggest opposition group in parliament, has said Costa’s proposal about Centeno demonstrates the central bank governor’s lack of independence.
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Centeno previously served as finance minister in two minority Socialist governments led by Costa, who named him Bank of Portugal head in 2020. The country’s central bank governors serve five-year terms.
In Portugal, the prime minister and his government set policy. The president is mainly a figurehead, though he has the authority to appoint the premier and dissolve parliament.
