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The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, spoke this Sunday about the restructuring of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) with the national director of the Public Security Police (PSP), Magina da Silva. According to the national director of the PSP, the case of the death of the Ukrainian citizen Ihor Homenyuk (which includes a disciplinary process against 12 PSP agents involved in the crime) was not discussed in this meeting with the President of the Republic, but the restructuring of the body. Speaking to reporters at the end of the meeting, Manuel Magina da Silva said that he defended the merger of PSP and SEF. “With the vision of this restructuring, the PSP is extinguished, the SEF is extinguished and a national police force appears”, putting the example of the Spanish, French and Italians.
According to the PSP director, the issues that have been announced and that “have been worked on with the Ministry of the Interior” will go “not through the absorption of SEF by PSP”, but “through the merger between PSP and SEF,” he explained. . Later, the media received a note explaining that this is only a personal vision that does not affect the Government’s decision and the joint work that is being carried out. The PSP statement also says that its national director “did not intend to condition any ongoing restructuring of the internal security system.”
Despite noting that there is a collaboration with the Ministry of Internal Administration, Magina da Silva’s statements were not well received by the minister responsible for the portfolio. In reaction to the Lusa agency, Eduardo Cabrita stressed that the reform is being prepared by “four government areas” and will be announced “in an appropriate manner” by the Government “and not by a Police Director.” The minister chose not to confirm or deny the hypothesis raised by the director of the PSP.
Costa defended the idea
The idea of merging police forces is not new. The strategy had already been defended by António Costa, when he was tutor of the Internal Administration portfolio, under the government of José Sócrates. At that time, the current prime minister defended the merger between PSP and GNR, which the director of PSP did not mention whether or not it will be part of the restructuring project under study.
Although the Government Program, presented in 2019, already provides for a restructuring of the SEF, through “a very clear organic separation between the police functions and the administrative functions of authorization and documentation of immigrants,” the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said this week the possibility that SEF will lose its border control skills.
The operation of this police has been at the center of public attention after the murder of the Ukrainian citizen Ihor Homenyuk, in March, in the temporary installation center of the SEF, at Lisbon airport. The case won larger Attention in recent days with the resignation of the director of the SEF, Cristina Gatões, and put several parties calling for the resignation of Eduardo Cabrita, the minister who is in charge of the SEF.
This Sunday, the BE leader, Catarina Martins, again insisted on the resignation of the Minister of Internal Administration, believing that the governor “lost the conditions for the position he occupies” and for not agreeing with the way he handled the performance of the SI F. Catarina Martins regretted that, instead of announcing “profound changes” in border security and immigration policy, “so that Human Rights are respected,” Eduardo Cabrita chose to “victimize himself.”
The CDS also considers that the eventual extinction of the SEF is a government tactic to avoid holding the Minister of Internal Administration politically responsible.
The general secretary of the PCP, Jerónimo de Sousa -who in Congress defended the merger of PSP and GNR-, although he also defended that there should be “a reconsideration of the operation of this service”, stressed that it is necessary “not all employees of SEF as if they had committed crimes, because that is not true ”. Regarding Eduardo Cabrita, the communist leader stated that “firing ministers ‘to work’ is not a way to go.” “The criticisms of the Government should be made to the Government and, of course, to the main responsible, who is the Prime Minister. We do not follow this strange idea of pushing the ministers more or less uncomfortably ”, he declared.
