Albuquerque's appointment was followed by the resignation of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Portas, who had openly criticized her nomination. Questions were raised after she denied that the Government had been informed about "swap" operations performed under the Government of Prime MinisterJosé Sócrates, while the former Minister of Finance, Vitor Gaspar, admitted that he had been informed. She is only the second woman to hold the office of finance minister in Portugal, after Manuela Ferreira Leite. As Finance Minister, Albuquerque has been supporting the reform program advocated by Portugal's creditors and put in place by Gaspar. In January 2015, she announced that Portugal would follow Ireland with an early repayment of bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund after borrowing costs fell and the country was able to sell 30-year bonds. At the time, Portugal's economy was growing again after a three-year recession caused by a debt crisis and austerity. Also, Albuquerque bolstered Portugal's bank resolution fund in 2014 by earmarking 5.4 billion euros in Treasury loans. In early August 2014, she spent 4.9 billion euros to rescue Banco Espírito Santo, the country's second-largest lender, mostly from public funds. The bank was split into a regular bank called Novo Banco and a "bad bank" that inherited unserviced debt. In her position as finance minister, Albuquerque also served as a Member of the Board of Governors at the African Development Bank, the European Stability Mechanism and the European Investment Bank. Following the 2014 European elections, it was believed that Passos Coelho was going to nominate Luís Albuquerque as Portugal's member of the European Commission, a job that eventually went to Carlos Moedas. At the time, there was speculation in the Portuguese press that Luís Albuquerque was not nominated because Jean-Claude Juncker would not guarantee her a weighty portfolio in the Commission.
Life after politics
Following her party's defeat at the 2015 national elections, Luís Albuquerque left her office as finance minister and became a non-executive director at Arrow Global, a UK-based provider of debt purchase and receivables management solutions. She joined the company's Audit & Risk Committee. In June 2016, Luís Albuquerque made headlines when she wrote in an article published in business daily Jornal de Negócios that "it is public knowledge that Caixa Geral de Depósitos granted large loans in the past, without sufficient guarantees and using practices that are difficult to justify to the public interest." Shortly after, Portugal's government ordered an independent audit of the country's largest bank, state-owned CGD.
