European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The CIA-Funded Centre-Left in Portugal
Part 6
António Costa, in his former role as Secretary-General of the
PS, attending an event held in Lisbon in April 2023 to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the party's
foundation.
In this part we begin our "deep dive" into the world of domestic Portuguese politics by taking a look at the Portuguese Socialist Party or Partido Socialista (PS), the party with which António Costa is affiliated. Costa served as the Secretary-General of PS from November 2014 to January 2024, stepping down from this role about two months after he had resigned as Prime Minister of Portugal in November 2023.
The PS is a centre-left social-democratic party which was founded by members of the Portuguese Socialist Action (Acção Socialista Portuguesa), an association composed mainly of exiled opponents of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime.
The decision to form a political party was taken on 19th April 1973 at a secret meeting which took place in the German city of Bad Münstereifel at a location belonging to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation which is a political foundation associated with the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The father of António Campinos, Joaquim Jorge de Pinho Campinos, was a founding member of the PS and he was present at the inaugural meeting. The party's first Secretary-General and main figurehead was Mário Soares who served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and again from 1983 to 1985. Soares subsequently held office as President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.
António Costa (right) raises a glass with Isabel Soares (left),
the widow of Mario Soares, in November 2023 during a commemorative
visit to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Academy in Bad Münstereifel
where the inaugural meeting of the Portuguese PS
took place on 19th April 1973.
An interesting detail of the "hidden history" of the PS is the fact that during its early days it was covertly financed by the US government. The funds – reportedly provided by the CIA – were channelled to Portugal with the assistance of other European socialist parties, in particular the German SPD, headed at the time by Willy Brandt.
The decision of the US government to support the PS was motivated by the perceived threat of a communist takeover in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution.
During the Estado Novo regime the main internal opposition force in Portugal had been the Portuguese Communist Party headed by Álvaro Cunhal. In the political turmoil which followed the fall of the old regime, the communists seemed to be acquiring a dominant position and there was a very real risk that Portugal could end up aligned with the Eastern Bloc if they were not stopped. Portugal had been a founding member of NATO in 1949 and the prospect of a communist takeover was something that alarmed Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
US Ambassador in Lisbon, Frank Carlucci (left), with Mário
Soares (right), the Secretary General of the PS, in the São
Bento Palace (1975).
It would have been far too risky for the US to openly bankroll the PS. If such a financial intervention had become known it would have left Soares exposed to denunciation by the communists as a puppet of US imperialism. So it was decided to divert the funding through the German SPD. The covert financing of the Portuguese PS was reported by the New York Times (NYT) in 1975 but it was denied at the time by the German SPD and other European socialist parties.
However decades later, in 2013, a Dutch media report entitled "Courier for Portugal" confirmed the role played by Harry van den Bergh, the international secretary of the Dutch Labour Party, who was contacted by Willy Brandt with a request to help with smuggling money to the PS in Lisbon. Van den Bergh, whose close contacts with the PS are documented in the Wikileaks cables, claimed to have participated in a number of financial transfers.
According to Van den Bergh, he collected the money at the Nederlandsche Middenstandsbank on Amstelstraat in Amsterdam, stuffed it into a suitcase and brought it by plane to Lisbon where it was handed it over to PS party members.
Mário Soares (centre) at Amsterdam Schipol Airport in 1975 with
Dutch Labour Party members, Eduard van Thijn (left) and Harry van
den Bergh (right), the "Courier for Portugal".
With the help of its US benefactors, the PS won the 1976 general election and formed the first constitutional government after the 1974 revolution, with Mário Soares as Prime Minister.
Since then the PS has continued to play a significant role in Portuguese politics often governing alone with an absolute majority or heading minority governments supported by smaller left-wing parties, and even on one occasion between June 1983 and November 1985 in coalition with its main rival, the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD).
However, during the last few years, the PS has seen a marked decline in its fortunes.
As recently as 2022, under Costa's leadership the party was able to win 120 of the 230 seats in the National Assembly, giving it an absolute majority. But, in the aftermath of "Operation Influencer", the party's electoral performance has weakened significantly.
In the March 2024 election immediately following Costa's resignation the PS only managed to retain 78 seats. In the most recent election of May 2025 triggered by a conflict-of-interest scandal involving PSD leader Luís Montenegro, the PS failed to capitalise on the problems of its centre-right rivals. Its seat count declined further to 58 as it was overtaken by the emerging right-wing populist party Chega.
Despite the decline in its fortunes, the PS remains the third largest party in the National Assembly and it is still a political force to be reckoned with, both in domestic Portuguese politics and in the context of the EU. As we have seen, the former party leader, António Costa, occupies a key position in the corridors of power at Brussels as President of the European Council.
In the next part we will continue our exploration of the Portuguese political landscape as we turn our attention to Costa's successor as Prime Minister of Portugal, namely Luís Montenegro, the leader of the PSD and current head of a minority government formed by a centre-right coalition known as the "Democratic Alliance". █
Previously: