Portugal is a country you can trust – PM in Germany
Following a week of almost surreal crisis within his Cabinet, prime minister António Costa has told a group of German businessmen in Hanover that Portugal is one of the few countries with political stability; a country to be trusted, and one that is committed to balancing its books.
Mr Costa was addressing an event organised by the Luso-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry to celebrate the presence of Portugal at this year’s Hanover Industrial Fair – “one of the largest in the world”, according to Lusa.
In a 30-minute speech, he said that in spite of current international “difficulties”, Portugal was in an “ideal geographical position to be in the front line of digital transition”. The country is strongly focused on renewable energies, has “overcome its historic deficit in terms of qualifications” and has European Funds to apply with the PRR (Plan for Recovery and Resilience) and Portugal 2030.
“Beyond our geographic position, beyond our human capital, beyond our funding opportunities, the truth is we have an institutional, geopolitical and financial framework that can be an added factor of trust. Portugal has political stability, which few countries have”, he went on.
Portugal “will be the 4th safest country in the world”, he added (curiously, as Portugal only recently slipped to 6th place in the Global Peace Index) – and in times of war this is no small thing – and it has maintained a firm trajectory of consolidation in public finances”.
“Although the (Budgetary) Stability Pact has been suspended, last year we managed to stay below the 3% deficit threshold and this year we will certainly be below or at least very close to the objective of 1.9%”, he said.
Mr Costa even stressed that “despite the extraordinary support granted by the State to combat Covid-19, Portugal has managed to resume inversion of the weight of debt in GDP. Read More…
