Portugal’s Finance Minister has made a rare statement on the situation surrounding ripped off BES depositors, commenting the she deeply regrets the situation and has "enormous respect for these personal tragedies," but stressed that only the regulators and the courts can resolve the issue.
"I deeply regret the situation of people who feel deceived, who feel they have been wronged, who feel they have lost their savings, and there is a huge personal respect for these dramas, but it is a situation which, as we have said from the beginning, is up to the regulators to solve," said Maria Luís Albuquerque in response to questions from journalists during a trip to the Açores.
Albuquerque insisted that this is a matter which by law is entrusted to independent regulators and if they can’t resolve the issue, then the courts will come up with a solution.
"Hopefully we can find a good solution” and realised that in many cases, lifetime savings simply had vanished and that "there is no lack of respect here for people and in the situation in which they have found themselves "
The BES protestors went on a five hour protest at various Novo Banco branches in Lisbon today, starting at the Ministry of Finance. Several roads were closed to traffic as a result.
Lawyer Nuno Silva Vieira said that next week the main legal action starts with complaints being registered from overseas BES customers at the European Court and at the United Nations.
Albuquerque has managed to distance herself from this wrangle, as has Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, but both have been their covert support to Carlos Costa, the lame duck governor of the Bank of Portugal who may yet be become politically expendable.
Costa's handling of the depositors case has been marked by indifference to those seriously affected by his ‘resolution’ strategy of splitting BES into ‘good bank/bad bank’ which left thousands of BES customers twisting in the wind.