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In the hours when he is not at the office, António Costa leads a normal life and they have already seen him in a market and also in a large commercial area in Benfica, where the cashier’s employees seemed amused: “Look at the Prime Minister and the woman. And he leaves without a mask or gloves. This is how it is! That day, the discussion about the use of this protective equipment in closed and crowded spaces had been going on for some time, and experts noted that this precaution was valid, but DGS resisted and waited for the recommendations of the World Health Organization. . Three days after this In the episode, Graça Freitas published the norm to consider using a mask in closed spaces with a large number of people. But Costa has resisted and has since been seen inside the Alvalade market, next to the fish stall, with only one glove on his right hand.
The Prime Minister has said that it has not yet been “roboticized”, to justify that the momentum of a handshake comes out from time to time, as happened after a press conference with the Minister of Education, to announce that basic education I would not have classes again this school year and the high school may only have them for subjects where the exam is specific to entering University. It was a moment of weight, after a Council of Ministers in which António Costa wanted to be the face of the radical change that would affect 1.5 million students and their families.
This management of faces on several occasions is thought by the Government’s political center, as well as the eight interviews that the Prime Minister gave in the space of 15 days, two of them to morning programs: that of Cristina Ferreira (SIC) and that of Manuel Luís Goucha (TVI). Then he went through TVI, Rádio Renascença, Lusa, The Observer and, finally, Expresso. More recently, after the first recovery measures were announced, in the context of a calamity (and not a state of emergency), he would speak again, this time about RTP. An unusual battery, but with the cabinet considering it necessary at this point to explain measures, repeat arguments and leave clues for the future. Certainly, with the numbers of infection controlled and the good example of the country to be cited abroad, Costa saw an important moment to appear here, when associated with these gains.
With Belém, the conversations are constant and the mail of the diploma has changed format. Instead of emails between the Government and the Presidency, everything began to be done by email. Unnecessary contacts are avoided and the promulgation and consequently the entry into force of urgent matters is also accelerated. Thus it has been with the presidential decrees of the state of emergency and those of its execution made by the Government. There were Councils of Ministers that had barely finished and the Presidency had already announced on the official website the promulgation of three threading diplomas.
Tiago Antunes, who in the previous Government was at the center of the Government’s legislative production, as Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, does not risk saying that this practice will continue from now on: “I do not know if it is here to stay, it was made for this contingency period. ” But he recognizes the advantages: “Avoid the exchange of diplomas between the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and Belém. How much more practical would it have been …”, he laughs, recalling the moments when he was on one side of this circuit.
But speed is not just explained by the speed of this digital communication. There is another part that has to do with the proximity with which everything has been worked with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. State of emergency decrees, for example, were almost tailored to the wishes of the government. The process began in Belém with a draft decree that was sent to the Government. From there, the diploma returned to Belém with several suggestions incorporated, which involved various ministries in the final touches. The bridge was maintained, conversations here and there, coordinated by the Chief of Staff of the Presidency and by the Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Therefore, the document, which was never a stable text until it was closed, was changing its form with requests, for example, from the Ministry of Economy to have the power to open and close companies by order.
In São Bento, there is still a cook, so the Prime Minister’s meals have not been a problem. The team, on the other hand, has resolved the matter many times at the street restaurant, which is operating in remove. Worse is when orders go out of hours. Just a few days ago, the Minister of the Environment, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, was called at the last minute to a meeting that was being held in São Bento with the Prime Minister. The government official went there, but the meeting ended after two in the afternoon. Problem: the remove where the minister usually runs his lunches, it was already closed, so before leaving, Matos Fernandes invited himself: they would have to give him lunch because he could no longer eat at Rua do Século. He stayed for lunch in the São Bento dining room.
And if the food was resolved, in this moment of confinement and closed establishments, regarding sleep, there was little to do. In the Ministry of Education, another focus of operations in this pandemic, taking into account the suspension of face-to-face classes, the lights are on late and Minister Tiago Brandão Rodrigues is online until dawn The weekend he was in the Ricardo Araújo Pereira program, at SIC, since makeup was also reduced these days, there was not enough powerful powder to hide the minister’s dark circles. If you know that you don’t sleep much in your office, the days of the state of emergency further confirmed his fame.
Leave little, one of the most media outlets was when he went to the RTP studios to start the #estudoemcasa. Most of the time was spent in the office, with few face-to-face meetings. He favors meetings by cell phone or video call and usually leaves the Ministry only after dinner. Enter the office, the Ministry, among your personal, the lunch box became popular and, as an athlete, now the kilometers it makes are talking mainly on his cell phone, side by side, on the balcony of the Ministry. Confinement within the confinement. Not even Paredes de Coura, his homeland, has been gone, which means not seeing his family (his mother and brother live there) since February, the month it all started.
