Draghi to discuss “prospects and challenges for future of EU”
Portugal’s Council of State is meeting today with the participation of Mario Draghi, former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Central Bank (ECB), to analyse “the prospects and challenges for the future of the European Union”.
As president Marcelo has said, this meeting corresponds to an “invitation made a long time ago”: the idea was always to hold it “right after the inauguration of the President of the United States” – to “look at the world and look at Europe and understand what was coming”.
The objective “is to hear precisely how (Draghi) sees the world, relations between the United States of America and Europe, the development of the European economy, the European recovery, in what time frame, under what conditions, by what means”, said the president, considering “the moment is very, very opportune”.
This will be the 38th meeting of the Council of State and is taking place just 12 days after the previous one – called to dissolve the trouble-torn Regional Legislative Assembly of Madeira.
Economist Mario Draghi has been invited to talk to the Council of State before – on April 7, 2016 – when president Marcelo wanted to hear his take on the economic and financial situation in Europe.
Three years later, the president honoured Draghi with the Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator.
Make-up of Council of State:
The members of the Council of State, by extension, are the holders of the positions of President of the Assembly of the Republic, Prime Minister, President of the Constitutional Court, the Ombudsman, Presidents of regional governments and former Presidents of the Republic.
Under the terms of the Constitution, this advisory body also includes five citizens appointed by the Head of State, and five elected by the Assembly of the Republic.
The current five members appointed by the President of the Republic are Leonor Beleza, Lídia Jorge, Joana Carneiro, António Lobo Xavier and Luís Marques Mendes.
The councillors elected by parliament for the current legislature are Francisco Pinto Balsemão and Carlos Moedas, nominated by the PSD, Pedro Nuno Santos and Carlos César, by the PS, and André Ventura, by CHEGA.
It is traditionally accepted that no members of the Council speak of what goes on ‘behind closed doors’, although since André Ventura has been a member, there has been a slightly different feel to the whole process.
Ventura told reporters earlier this month: “The only thing I have suggested, and I am a State Counsellor, that’s what I’m paid for, that’s what I was elected for, is to make the Council of State a useful body and not one in which there are a bunch of people over the age of I don’t know how many years saying what’s on their mind that doesn’t interest anyone and doesn’t add anything to the life of the country.”
