The Prosecutor's Office is not to charge the three former secretaries of state who went to France to watch football matches in August 2016, at the invitation of energy giant, Galp.
Three resignations were accepted after the public servants attend Euro 2016 football matches in France, at Galp's expense.
Investigations involved interviewing former parliamentary leaders, Luís Montenegro and Hugo Soares as well as Vitor Escária, a former economic adviser to Prime Minister, João Bezerra da Silva, a former chief of staff of Rocha Andrade, Pedro Almeida Matias, a former chief of staff of Vasconcelos and Algarve MP, Cristóvão Norte.
The Public Prosecutor's Office has decided that fines of between €600 and €4,500 will be sufficient punishment for all those involved. The top rate will be paid by the three former secretaries of State: Fernando Rocha Andrade, João Vasconcelos and Jorge Costa Oliveira.
The Prosecutor decided there was no basis on which to charge the men of committing a crime but as they had broken internal ministry rules, they should be fined.
Galpgate blew up in the summer of 2016, just as the Government was drafting a code of conduct for such situations - which ended up limiting gifts to the cash value of €150 and, subjectively, gifts banned if there is an expectation of a future favour being done.
At the time, Galp was involved in a dispute with the government over its refusal to pay the special energy tax - a dispute that could easily have involved Fernando Rocha Andrade, then Secretary of State for Tax Affairs, in its resolution.
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