Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and António Costa had lunch together, on Thursday, after the audience at the Belém Palace. The meeting with the former Prime Minister and current President of the European Council comes after the President of the Republic once again asked the current Prime Minister Luis Montenegro for more strategic cooperation.
António Costa was received in Belém at 12:30 pm on Thursday, to meet with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. According to the Presidency of the Republic, the meeting was objective and included the discussion of international and European issues.
Upon his arrival in Belém, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa received the current President of the European Council in the Sala das Becas, in front of the media. As they crossed the room side by side, the former Prime Minister asked the President of the Republic if he was in a good mood. The Head of State replied: “Very nice”.
The day before, in his New Year’s Message, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa asked Luis Montenegro for “strategic cooperation” and “common sense”. In his penultimate New Year’s address as President of the Republic, he pointed out that “we need the common sense that led us to strengthen institutional solidarity, and even strategic collaboration between sovereign bodies, specifically between the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, to continue.” The Republic.
However, this was not the first time that he had asked for collaboration from the CEO. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had indicated, albeit between the lines, that there was no collusion between the two.
On December 18, when the CEO went to Belém to deliver Christmas greetings, the President of the Republic asked the government for more “predictability” and “strategic collaboration” because “institutional solidarity is important but not enough”.
At the beginning of the month Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa recalled, at the initiative of PÚBLICO, his cohabitation with António Costa. “I often said to a government official with whom I had shared almost eight and a half years of unforgettable experience: one day he will admit that we were happy and we did not know it,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. He stressed that “everything was relative, and it was relative happiness, but compared to what was there, it was happiness.”
