A new “shock” as the country hurtles towards the moment where energy companies GALP and ENI will have the green light to start drilling for oil and gas off the Algarve/ Alentejo coast: one of the advisors to the Minister of the Sea (from January 2016 to January this year) happens also to have been holding a senior position at GALP.
Was this really kosher, query MPs – not MPs on the government’s side, nor those on the wider opposition – just Bloco de Esquerda, the minority party that makes up for its size by stirring up controversy at almost every turn.
The potential conflict of interest has apparently been known for some time. It is only now that the Left Bloc has tabled a question to the office of the Minister of the Sea on its legal ethics.
Says Diário de Notícias, the Left Bloc’s queries followed a blistering column in Público by party member and climate activist João Camargo – a leading light in the fight to focus on renewable energies.
Camargo claims that “since 2016 the Ministry of the Sea has been the driving force in the government for the process of oil and natural gas exploration in Portugal”.
Surprise, surprise that the only concessions still “in force” along the Algarve/ Alentejo coastline are those held by GALP and Italian company ENI.
For Camargo, the dates coincide much too conveniently with the influence wielded at the ministry by ‘advisor’ Ruben Eiras, who “simultaneously” held a managerial position at GALP .
After two years in his advisory capacity, Eiras has now been appointed “Director General of Sea Policies”.
According to DN this weekend, there was no selection process for this appointment. Eiras simply got it.
In Camargo’s words, everything points to the Ministry of the Sea “helping the oil companies” every step of the way.
It was the Ministry of the Sea that helped oil companies take out an injunction against a block on drilling in 2017, and it was the Ministry of the Sea which is now appealing the ruling of Loulé administrative court which, again, has held up oil companies descent on the Algarve, he explains.
Público gave Ruben Eiras the opportunity to reply to Camargo’s allegations.
In a text entitled: “Is it really that difficult to accept that there are people who think differently”, Eiras upbraided Camargo for what he called a “theory full of falsities and inconsistencies”.
“João can disagree with what is being done, that is his right”, writes Eiras. “He may not agree, as I do, that strategic decisions have to be taken from the basis of scientific knowledge and that these can be obtained with the least environmental impact possible and most gain for the country”.
What Camargo should not do, says Eiras, is suggest people are not thinking ‘with their own heads’ – “that we are all puppets in a shady theatre.
“Is it really that difficult to accept that there are people who think differently without having to explain this with hidden benefits?
“Are there economic interests related to oil prospection? Of course there are. Immense (interests). Innumerous. Opportunities in these vast seas are not lacking. And before the interests of this or that private company exists the interest of João’s own country and that of 11 million other of his fellow citizens. And that is the interest that needs to be discussed”.
Eiras’ opinion article however didn’t once challenge Camargo’s contention over the dual roles for two years at the Ministry of the Sea and in GALP.
And according to DN on Saturday, the Bloco de Esquerda question as to whether these roles were compatible has also been put by journalists who until today had not received any kind of reply.
A few hours ago, however, it came: on a Sunday, to refute entirely the existence of simultaneous job responsibilities. Eiras apparently ceased his job at GALP the month before he moved in to advise the ministry.
