“The Prime Minister was coordinating all this teamwork; if the Prime Minister were to speak every hour, as some thought was more appropriate, he would not be working, he would be preparing hourly updates and for what he was going to say,” said Luís Montenegro, responding to criticism by the PS leader regarding the Government’s communication during a recent crisis.
Montenegro made these remarks to journalists upon arriving at the official residence in Lisbon, where the event “São Bento em família” featuring cultural moments open to the public was taking place.
“We spoke when we needed to speak, gave the information we had to give, so as not to create expectations that could not be fulfilled,” he stated, adding that simultaneously, the Government aimed not to be pessimistic and acted “with a sense of responsibility, to reassure people.”
The Prime Minister noted that the country found itself “in a very complicated situation.”
“It wasn’t easy, but I believe the Portuguese people showed great maturity, serenity, and also resilience,” he asserted.
The head of Government highlighted that on the international stage, Portugal is being praised for its “enormous capacity to recover from an extremely complex, unprecedented, and unexpected situation within twelve hours.”
“It’s a compliment to everyone, firstly to the Portuguese people, as I mentioned just yesterday [Wednesday], to the technicians who collaborated to resolve the situation, to the public employees and company staff who helped ensure essential services and the functioning of critical infrastructure; and that is how it was, I am not going to praise the Government but the Government did its part,” he noted.
Montenegro mentioned that the Executive “was in continuous session from 1 PM to midnight, with all ministers coordinating the services under their responsibility.”
“Just yesterday I saw criticism for the supposed absence of ministers, or in the case of two ministers, from the spotlight, from the media’s microphones. These ministers, like all other members of the Government, were working, fulfilling their task, solving urgent problems for people’s lives, completing their mission. They were here with me, it was in this building they spent the day, by my side, with a team spirit, mutual help, and speaking constantly with the services under their scope of responsibility,” he stated.
A widespread power outage on Monday at around 11:30 AM affected both Portugal and Spain, leaving authorities without an explanation.
Closed airports, transportation, and city traffic congestion, along with fuel shortages, were among the consequences of the “blackout.”
The electricity distribution network operator, E-Redes, assured on Tuesday morning that service had been fully restored and normalized.
