The President of the Republic confirmed this Friday that Pedro Passos Coelho is “a political asset for the future”, justifying that he is loudly saying what “many Portuguese are asking for”.
“I said to say the following, the country owes you because it really owes you what it did during the troika crisis and what is a political asset for the future. I have said this to many people, this is my opinion as President of the Portuguese Republic, say out loud what many Portuguese are asking for,” Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said this Friday in Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto, on the sidelines of the assembly of magistrates.
Faced with a report in the weekly Expresso this Friday that the praise he made was not well received by the former prime minister, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza said he spoke as a president, not as a citizen.
“With regard to Dr. Passos Coelho, as with many other people in Portuguese life, I spoke as President of the Republic, and not as Marcelo Rebelo de Souza,” he insisted.
On October 15 in Amarante, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza felt that the country “still has a lot to look forward to from the contributions” of former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, as he noted his allegations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
“To be so young [Pedro Passos Coelho]the country can expect, should expect a lot from its contribution in the future, I have no doubt,” he told reporters, noting that the “resistance” of the ex-head of government during the Troika period is recognized inside and outside Portugal.
“In a very difficult period of crisis in the troika, the country owes the resistance to Prime Minister Passos Coelho, which only two days ago I could hear in the mouth of the then Chancellor Angela Merkel. and they recognize it from the outside, this is a fact, ”added Marcelo Rebelo de Souza.
Statements by the President of the Republic were made on the sidelines of the ceremony marking the centenary of Agustin Bessa Luis, which was attended by the former Prime Minister.
