Lisbon, July 8, 2025 (Lusa) - Former Portuguese PM, José Sócrates, on Tuesday clarified that he always acted impartially regarding BES shareholders in the former PT, emphasising that his government ended the company’s monopoly and that Passos Coelho’s government subsequently managed the “transition” of the former telephone company.
The former prime minister, who began his testimony today in the Operation Marquês trial, accused the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) of lying, “knowingly,” in supporting the theory that he favoured the interests of the former president of Banco Espírito Santo (BES), Ricardo Salgado, in the former national telephone company, Portugal Telecom (PT).
Presenting Judge Susana Seca with “the big numbers” on PT’s management and activity during his government and in the years that followed, Socrates sought to demonstrate that, during his term of office, the Competition Authority ended the company’s monopoly, reduced PT’s market share, and enabled other operators to enter the market, and that the Competition Authority also imposed heavy fines on PT.
“If this is standing by the interests of PT’s shareholders, I have nothing to add, because this situation is truly absurd… My government, in my defence, was the one that did the most to end PT’s monopoly, so the claim that my government or I colluded with any PT shareholder to increase PT’s value is simply false,” said Socrates.
Sócrates also used figures to attribute responsibility for PT’s decline to the government of Pedro Passos Coelho, who succeeded him as prime minister, even stating that his government would have prevented this outcome.
According to José Sócrates, during his term of office, PT invested its cash surpluses mainly in term deposits, with a proportion of just over 30%, percentages that exceeded 90% between 2012 and 2014, the first years of Passos Coelho’s social-democratic government, a period when the government also began to invest cash surpluses in debt securities, namely those of Rioforte, a subsidiary of BES.
“The government began investing all cash surpluses in BES in 2012, during Passos Coelho’s government,” said Sócrates.
When the judge questioned him about the government’s influence on the decision on how to invest the cash surpluses, Sócrates said that the decision rested with the company’s management, “but government oversight was very important”.
The former prime minister said that his government could have been in a better position to exercise this oversight through the ‘golden share’ (a shareholder position that grants special voting rights) it held in PT, but that Passos Coelho’s government could have done so through the position of Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) in the telephone company, which would eventually cease to be a shareholder.
“PT’s downfall came about with the active collaboration of Pedro Passos Coelho’s government. This accusation by PT served to tell a political lie,” Sócrates said, referring to the public prosecutor’s thesis.
Sócrates rejected his government’s responsibility for PT’s downfall, attributing it to his successor: “The following government was not complicit, but it passively watched PT’s downfall.”
“In my government, we maintained a responsible stance and avoided concentrating 90% of investments in BES,” he said.
Even before the break in the morning session, Socrates concluded his defence regarding the charges related to PT: “‘I rest my case’ on the PT charges.”
When proceedings resumed, José Sócrates also touched on the subject of the sale of PT’s stake in Vivo, in which the government opposed the operator’s exit from the Brazilian market. On this point, the former prime minister rejected any accusation by the public prosecutor’s office regarding the alleged influence of Ricardo Salgado.
‘The Public Prosecutor’s Office believes that Ricardo Salgado asked me to vote against the sale of Vivo, to use the ‘golden share’ against the sale of Vivo,’ said José Sócrates, describing this accusation as “unfounded”.
The former prime minister also wanted to criticise the Public Prosecutor’s Office further, saying that “this is the first time in history that this has happened - prosecutors accuse a government of faking a public discourse that it maintained for months on end and having a secret intention that consisted of actually wanting to sell Vivo”.
At the end of the morning session, José Sócrates’ defence team requested that the court hear the statements made by Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, former finance minister, during the preliminary investigation, but the court, with the opposition of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, denied the request.
As justification, the former prime minister explained that, in these statements, the former minister “affirms that Ricardo Salgado called him on the morning of the general meeting to tell him that he was in favour of the sale of Vivo and that the government could benefit from not using the ‘golden share’.”
Eleven years after authorities arrested José Sócrates at Lisbon airport, the trial of Operation Marquês began last Thursday, bringing the former prime minister and 20 other defendants to court and involving more than 650 witnesses.
The 21 defendants in this case are charged with 117 crimes, including corruption, money laundering and tax fraud. For now, the court has scheduled 53 sessions, which will run until the end of this year, and will schedule further sessions in the future. During this trial, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will call 225 witnesses, and the defence of each of the 21 defendants will call around 20 witnesses, and the court will hear all of them.
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