Controversies
Paulo Portas is involved in several controversies, such as:
The Vichyssoise story - In 1993, Paulo Portas publicly embarassed Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (a prominent political figure in Portugal) when he stated on TV that Marcelo was one of Independente's sources albeit an unreliable one because he was prone to making up stories, such as when he gave an account of a political VIP dinner that had never taken place going as far as inventing that the soup served during the dinner was Vichyssoise. This did not prevent Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in 1999 when he was leader of Portugal's Social Democratic Party (PSD), from seeking an elections alliance with Paulo Portas' PP party that was initially agreed but collapsed shortly after due to Paulo Portas involvement in the Moderna scandal (see below). Marcelo then had to resign from the PSD leadership and lost his opportunity to become prime-minister. Since then, in Portuguese politics, "Vichysoisse" (which is a cold soup) serves as a metaphor for "revenge that is best served cold" and for Paulo Portas' ruthless betraying of his onetime allies--such as when he snatched the PP party leadership from his PP mentor Manuel Monteiro or when he undermined Pedro Passos Coelho in their coalition government.
The Moderna affair - In 1999 a scandal erupted concerning Universidade Moderna, a discredited university that had to be closed down by the government. Among many instances of embezzlement and questionable spending, it was shown that Paulo Portas was provided free of charge a top-of-the-line Jaguar automobile by the university. Paulo Portas defended the Jaguar perk as recognition for work he did for the polling center of the university. One of the university's deans later said at trial that Portas had specifically justified his choice of a Jaguar because it was 'very British' and that he had received other perks and payoffs that contributed to the university's financial insolvency. Paulo Portas was summoned to the trial, but ultimately no evidence of wrongdoing against him emerged. The case had a further twist in 2002 when Paulo Portas became government minister and allegedly arranged the dismissal of the Director of the Economic Crimes Department of the Portuguese Police Force--Maria José Morgado--because, according to her, she was investigating the Moderna Affair. Paulo Portas had no comment.
The occupation of fort S. Julião da Barra - In 2002, when Paulo Portas committed his PP party to a government coalition with the PSD party and became Minister of Defense he made sure to install himself in the historic seafront fort of S. Julião da Barra just outside Lisbon. This was the first time in memory a Portuguese Minister of Defense was attributed an official residence and resulted in the closing of the historic monument to the public and in new remodellation and upkeep costs for Paulo Portas' occupancy. Paulo Portas defended his move to the fort as "a gain for the State."
The 105 bank deposits and the Portucale case --In 2004 it was discovered that Paulo Portas' CDP-PP party had made 105 deposits into the party's accounts totaling 1 million euros, raising the possibility that it was an attempt to circumvent monitoring regulations on political party funding. The police suspected the Espirito Santo Group (on whose bank the money was deposited) to have donated that money in connection with a tourism development named Portucale in Benavente that entailed the cutting down of thousands of protected cork trees, which Paulo Portas, just before he stopped being government minister, allegedly facilitated. Paulo Portas denied any illegality and was not directly implicated in the case. However, in investigating this case, the police intercepted phone calls that motivated another investigation into the costly purchase of two submarines by the Portuguese State (see below). It turned out that the company in charge of the Portucale project--ESCOM which was part of the ])--was also an intermediary in the submarine deal, for which it had received 30 million euros in advance.
The submarines' case - As Minister of State and Defense in 2004 Paulo Portas was responsible for the decision to reduce the previous government's order of four submarines for the Portuguese Navy to only 2 from a sales intermediary named German Submarine Consortium (GSC) and personally authorized a downgrade in equipment worth 30 million euros (which, coincidentally or not, was the same as the amount paied to ESCOM) without any reduction in the price to be paid by Portugal.--712 million to 1 billion euros depending on calculations. The cost of the purchase came due in 2010 and was a major factor in the budgetary crisis that erupted that year and led to political fingerpointing in what came to be known in Portuguese as caso dos submarinos. The deal also had an obscure "counterparts" provision for the German side to purchase Portuguese goods and provide equipments, that may have been overvalued by hundreds of millions of euros (again depending on calculations) giving plenty of margin for embezzlement schemes. Moreover, the deal was shown in Germany to involve corruption and two German executives were prosecuted and convicted in 2011 of bribery, including of the Portuguese consul in Munich. A similar submarines deal in Greece was also shown to involve corruption and resulted in the arrest of the Greek Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzpoulos and in the exoneration of the chief executive of the German company effectively behind the deal Ferrostaal. As of 2012, there is no evidence that Paulo Portas personally embezzled any funds from the submarines' purchase but the facts that (i) he was the Minister in-charge at the time and (ii) he has consistently been evasive about his role and any details of the purchase, make him the main figure in this disastrous deal for Portugal's finances. Paulo Portas has defended himself by claiming the deal was agreed before he became Minister and that he had no contact with the two intermediaries found guilty of corruption in Germany. In 2012, the Portuguese Ministério Público considered Paulo Portas a suspect in its ongoing investigation into the deal and found that the government files on the submarines' purchase from when Paulo Portas was Minister of Defense "had disappeared."
The 61,000 xerox copies - When the government changed in 2004 and Paulo Portas stopped being Minister of Defense, he took with him 61,000 xerox copies of, presumably, Ministry files and documents. This generated the impression that Paulo Portas was in possession of confidential and compromising intelligence to be used for personal purposes. A partial investigation by the Ministério Público in 2009 found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Read more about this topic: Paulo Portas