José Sena Goulão / Lusa
Antonio Costa
Former president of Guinea-Bissau was with the former prime minister of Portugal. A “dictator”, “more than 500 victims”, “contract killings”.
Antonio Costa was with the former Presidents of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and from Senegal, Macky Sall, on March 26th.
The meeting took place in Brussels and was not on the official agenda. “In an environment where discretion borders on clandestine, it was not a diplomatic accident nor a mistake in the agenda”, writes activist Samuel Alfredo Gomes, in .
The former Portuguese prime minister is being criticized for having met with Umaro Sissoco Embaló, a politician who is accused of being dictator. It is an “inseparable marriage” that “requires a name and a response”, continues Samuel.
The president of the European Council had “a fugitive of electoral justice in his own country in a clearly dubious environment”.
It’s a connection that goes way back, when António Costa was prime minister and was one of the first European leaders to receive the then president of Guinea-Bissau; when the court process was still going on to verify the results of the elections in 2019. And then he went to Guinea, on an official visit. A matter of “friendship”. In fact, Embaló has already said that Costa is a “very great amigo”.
But Ana Gomes, a PS figure, is not convinced: “Ignoble – Costa, now President of the European Council, received the drug-assassin Sissoco in Brussels”, he wrote in .
The accusations
Umaro Sissoco Embaló is contested for several reasons. One of them was the legitimacy and duration of the presidential term: end in February 2025 for the opposition, in September 2025 for the Supreme Court of Justice.
The elections were postponed until November and, days later, the president was deposed in a military coup – which took place the day before the election results were announced. He sought refuge in Senegal, then fled to Congo.
Dissolved parliament in May 2022, alleging corruption among deputies; he dissolved it again in December 2023, after clashes that he classified as a coup attempt. He was accused of wanting to increase the concentration of power in the presidency.
He also garnered criticism about press freedom and intimidation of journalists. In August last year, delegations from the Lusa agency, RTP and RDP were from Guinea-Bissau.
New criticisms of Costa
Even so, the deposed president of Guinea-Bissau continues to have so much “courtesy” in the world and is a politician full of commendations, according to .
This Thursday, Guinean civil society organizations criticized António Costa, associating this political act with repression, violence and subversion of the democratic order in that country.
In a joint statement sent to the Lusa agency, the Civil Society Organizations Concertation Space (EdC), the Popular Front and Firdkidja di Pubis accuse António Costa of commit “a authority morality of the position he occupies” and to put “in cause a coherence of the European Union [UE] as a community founded on the defense of democracy and human rights”.
The organizations claim that this “attitude [por parte do presidente do Conselho Europeu] is not neutral”, but “a political choice with clear implications“.
“The European Parliament was clear in its resolution of December 18, 2025 in condemning the democratic breakdown and human rights violations in Guinea-Bissau. Its actions directly contradict this position”, the note reads.
According to the associations, the close relationship between Embaló and Costa raises “serious and unavoidable issues”which leads the signatories to condemn the “approach of a regime responsible for systematic violations of human rights”, to denounce its “relationship of complicity”, which could “compromise the integrity and credibility of European institutions”, and to warn of the impact of these actions on the trust of African people in the EU.
Umaro Sissoco Embaló, considered “dictator” by organizations, installed a regime of intimidation which claimed “more than 500 victims and one undetermined number of contract killings“, they denounce.
