Riding the wave of the global economic recovery and a tourism boom, Costa undid some of the austerity measures imposed by his predecessors
Lisbon – Just months after quitting over corruption allegations now crumbling, former Portuguese premier Antonio Costa could be poised for a comeback as head of the European Council.
The president of the council, who represents the EU’s 27 member states, is one of the top EU jobs, with the bloc’s top diplomat and the head of the European Commission to be decided at a Brussels summit starting Thursday.
Playing to his advantage, Costa is seen as a pragmatic socialist and skilful tactician, capable of negotiating unlikely agreements or turning setbacks into opportunities.
“In democracy, politics has to be based on compromise. One goes into politics to make deals,” the 62-year-old lawyer said in an interview this year.
Now Costa is himself part of a deal for the EU top jobs hashed out by the bloc’s leaders.
Coming from the EU’s southwestern fringe — he is seen as bringing the right political and geographical balance to the team of Ursula von der Leyen, the German who is expected to get a second term as the commission president.
“He’s her perfect symmetrical opposite,” said one diplomat. “He is a Social Democrat, he is from the south.”
Approval at the Brussels would complete a stunning reversal of fortune.
In November, Costa abruptly resigned after eight years as prime minister after being implicated in a probe into his administration’s handling of energy-related contracts.
The corruption probe — while not formally closed — has since appeared to come apart, with a court determining in April there was no indication a crime had been committed.
Family from Goa
The Lisbon-born Costa was raised in intellectual circles frequented by his father, a communist writer with family roots in Goa, Portugal’s former colony in India, and his mother, a journalist and women’s rights advocate.
Nicknamed “babush” — a term of endearment for a little boy in Goa — Costa joined the Socialist Party youth wing in 1975 when he was just 14, a year after a coup ended a decades-long right-wing dictatorship.
Educated in law and political science, Costa’s big political break came in 1995 when he was named secretary of state for parliamentary affairs in the minority government of Antonio Guterres, the current UN secretary-general.
Four years later, he became justice minister. Then after a brief stint as a member of the European Parliament, he became interior minister in 2005 in the Socialist government of Jose Socrates.
After two years, he stepped down and became mayor of Lisbon. He was re-elected in 2009 and 2013.
The move to municipal politics allowed Costa to distance himself from Socrates — who stepped down in 2011 after negotiating an international bailout for the country, and was arrested in 2014 on charges of corruption and tax evasion.
Determined and tenacious
That same year, Costa became head of the Socialist Party and although the party lost 2015 elections, Costa came to power by forging an unprecedented pact with the radical left to “turn the page on austerity”.
Riding the wave of the global economic recovery and a tourism boom, Costa undid some of the austerity measures imposed by his predecessors in exchange for an international aid package.
And his government balanced the books, posting the first budget surplus in Portugal’s recent history.
He led the Socialists to victory in the 2019 election, although they fell short of an outright majority.
In October 2021, after failing to win budgetary support from two small far-left parties, Costa called snap polls which finally brought him an absolute majority in January 2022.
Appreciated by Socialists across Europe, his pragmatic streak also helped him extend his influence beyond his political sphere.
In 2020, he visited Hungary’s hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban to overcome opposition to a post-COVID recovery plan that proved crucial for Portugal. AFP