By Ben Bajarin — Portugal’s first female president, Joao Costa, is looking to put an end to the “fear mongering” and “toxic politics” that have engulfed Portugal since she took office last year.
“The Portuguese are not scared of anything, so we will not change the country.
We will be the first to accept everything,” Costa told reporters after meeting President Ignacio Mattarella at his residence in Lisbon on Tuesday.
Costa is a former international football player who was an international footballer in Brazil, and her presidency was a chance for her to “go back to the basics” and make Portugal a “country of people who love their country”.
“We have to be open, we have to do everything,” she said, adding that the country “needs to be a country of the people, not just the elite”.
Costa’s mandate also includes the country’s biggest foreign investment project, the new Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which is due to be signed on Thursday.
The deal has been hailed as a landmark international deal, which aims to boost economic ties between the US and Europe by providing new opportunities for companies to invest in each other’s markets.
“We need to start looking at TTIP and TTIP in a whole new way.
We are all part of it, but we are also part of the journey, so that’s what I am going to do,” Costa said.
“I want to go back to work in my field.”
Costa has also promised to put a stop to corruption, and has promised to implement a new anti-corruption law, one that could lead to the decriminalisation of many crimes.
The Portuguese president is expected to unveil a list of 10 key reforms on Wednesday, including an overhaul of the criminal code, which she has said has failed to protect citizens.
The legislation has been criticised by some in the country as a step backwards from Portugal’s past, with the country facing a “reactionary” backlash.
“It’s time to look at the law again and change it, and to create new laws, to make the law better,” Costa is expected say.
Costa’s party is the biggest party in Portugal, and is also in a tight race with the ruling Workers’ Party for the country to become the first country to hold a new parliamentary election in over 100 years.
