Centeno does not indicate agreement with the managers of CGD – Observer

Mário Centeno spent the morning of this Friday to flee the responses on the General Box of Deposits. First, to the deputies of the right, who asked him in Parliament, with insistence, on the possible existence of a written agreement to be outside the scope of the obligations of public managers. Then he gave answers to equivocal questions of journalists on the same topic during the press conference of the vice-president of the European Commission Pierre Moscovici.

During the afternoon, the CDS released a question sent to the prime minister that appears to have more concrete evidence on the alleged agreement between the Government and the president of the Box, António Domingues:

Confirms the existence of an agreement, written or verbal, including through e-mail confirmation, with the president (at that time designated) of CGD relative to the non-delivery of declarations of income?"

The Public had already reported, a week ago, that the conditions to accept the leadership of the CGD placed by António Domingues were "writing" according to "information matching between Government sources and out of the Box", as early as 20 March, and that he had the agreement of Mário Centeno and Mourinho Félix.

Questioned by reporters, the minister of Finance responded at the hand of the French commissioner, that "the agreements that the Government makes with the international institutions and internally are then reflected in the decisions that the Government makes, and the legislative changes that have been taken to reflect fully the agreements that have been made". Ie: Rye seems to put the burden of the amendment of the Statute of the Public Manager (the only change in the law during this process) in the European Commission or the ECB, but also makes reference to agreements made "in-house". In the case of the ECB), the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank has arrived to respond to the following to a member of the Portuguese: "was Not assigned to the ECB any power to instruct the governments of the Member States to revoke laws that restrict the remuneration".

Since the beginning of this controversy, as noted in the preamble to the amendment to the Statute of the Public Manager, the Finance understand that "the specific rules that are subject to the referred to credit institutions" — that is, the Caixa Geral de Depósitos — "overlap largely, or even exceed, the limits established for the organization, operation and activity of public bodies, including those integrated in the corporate sector of the State and to the holders of their organs".

During the press conference, Mário Centeno has not clarified if arrived to make a written commitment on wages and non-delivery of declarations of income with the current administration of the GBD. Asked directly about the existence of this agreement, Mário Centeno fled to a response of law and limited itself to say that "the only commitment that the Government made in relation to the CGD is that if you keep a public bank, which will maintain its role in the Portuguese economy, and which is a bank competitive. This is the only commitment that we have"

The minister of Finance was questioned several times, this Friday, in Parliament, about whether there had been an agreement with the managers of the Box, including written, especially with regard to the non delivery of the statements of income in the Constitutional Court. The lawyer and manager, António Lobo Xavier ensured that there were appointments written with the administrators of the GBD in the Program the Quadrature of the Circle, this Thursday night. the "These appointments even are written," said the former head of CDS, criticizing the "incredible lack of solidarity" of the Government with the administration of the bank.

At least in the aspect of the employment of the managers who dealt with the end of the teats salary in the CGD, he was the President of the Republic to recognize that there was an agreement and a negotiation of the Government with the administration of the Box that involved legislative changes. On the note of the promulgation of this amendment to the Statute of the Public Manager, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wrote:

it Was in the framework of the preparation and trading this plan [recapitalisation], still in progress, that came to this decree, presented by the Government as required for the entry functions of the new administration."

In the same text, the President admitted only that the diploma was referring to the "the staff regulations the remuneration of the management" and never mentioned the problem of the delivery of the statements to the TC. But Rebelo de Sousa had to go further in his assessment, writing that even if you do not issue the change in the law, it was "not in the functions of the new Board of Directors, with the aggravation of the risk of paralysis of this institution.". That is, I was also pressured between giving to the CGD and administration to enact a bill on which it had reservations.

With the resumption of the controversy, after the commentator Luís Marques Mendes has raised the question of the submission of the statements of income in your program in the SIC, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa felt obliged to make a note to clarify that the President of the Republic did not consider that the Statute of the Public Manager about the issue. The decree of change "focused only on the Statute of the Public Manager", wrote to the President of the Republic, to the effect that "this Statute says nothing about the duty of declaration of income and assets to the Constitutional Court,". And dictated then that the managers had to deliver the statements in the TC, a position which he again repeated this Friday morning during a visit to the bazaar diplomatic.

News updated at 18h05 with the question of the CDS and the news of the Public.