Next BdP governor? "I already know the decision," says Prime Minister

The Prime Minister has already made a decision on the next governor of the Bank of Portugal, but he will keep it under wraps until Thursday, when it is revealed who will succeed Mário Centeno or even whether the former minister himself will succeed him, a possibility that has been on the table since last weekend. "I already know the decision, but I'm not going to reveal it," Luís Montenegro said this Monday in an interview with Antena 1. "Naturally, the people involved will now be contacted, and, furthermore, we will also have the decision of the Council of Ministers [this Thursday]," he added.

In this interview, and after leaving open the possibility of re-electing Mário Centeno over the weekend, Luís Montenegro also noted that everything is being done as “planned”.

Mário Centeno's term at the Bank of Portugal ended on Saturday, July 29th, and the government's decision on the matter will be announced on Thursday, after the Council of Ministers meeting. Speaking to journalists on Sunday in Madeira, Luís Montenegro responded to a question from RTP on the matter as follows: "The government's decision could be to keep the current governor or replace him – that's the decision we'll announce next Thursday." Regarding whether Mário Centeno could continue, he said: "Dr. Mário Centeno meets all the requirements to be governor of the Bank of Portugal. That's not in question."

In other statements at Chão da Lagoa, he emphasized that the appropriate profile for the position has not changed. "It's always the same. It must be a competent person who can guarantee the fulfillment of all the functions of a central bank."

In recent weeks, several names have been floated to replace Mário Centeno, who was already considered the only governor not to be reappointed in 25 years. Among the most talked about are former ministers under Pedro Passos Coelho: Álvaro Santos Costa and Vítor Gaspar, and Ricardo Reis, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. Economist Ricardo Reis has also been considered to succeed Centeno, but the London School of Economics professor may also be out of Montenegro's options.

Álvaro Santos Pereira is another of the three strongest names that have been mentioned as possibilities in recent months, with the former Minister of Economy, in an interview with Expresso, assuring that he was “very happy” as chief economist of the OECD, signaling that he would be out of the running.

As reported by JE on June 28, sources in the financial sector put forward other names such as João Cabral dos Santos, a member of the Federal Reserve (Fed) of New York, as well as Sérgio Rebelo, a doctor in Economics from the University of Rochester, a consultant for the World Bank, the European Commission, the IMF, the ECB, the McKinsey Global Institute, the Global Markets Institute of Goldman Sachs, and Luís Cabral, a professor at New York University.

The list of suggestions mentioned by JE also includes António Ramalho, who will no longer be incompatible from August 1st, after having been executive president of Novobanco.