Pointing out that Greece might yet need a third programme, the Prime Minister had little doubt why Portugal had managed to escape with but one programme: “and if we are in this situation, that is due to the fact that we did not follow the advice of the Socialist Party thus far.”
While not directly commenting on comments from the Socialist Party Secretary General António Costa who had earlier termed the victory of Syriza as a “sign of hope” and “the exhaustion of the policies of austerity,” Passos Coelho was having none of it.
The prime minister said that it was “a child’s fairy-tale” to maintain the idea “that a country might, for example, not accept its international commitments, not pay its debts, want to raise salaries, lower taxes and still expect partners to have the obligation to guarantee its financing.”
“It is known that the programme of the party that won the (Greek) elections is difficult to consolidate with the European rules. My hope is that this does prove possible because we all recognise the enormous effort put in by the Greeks to remain a European partner,” continued Passos Coelho before expressing his confidence that Portugal had taken the right path and could now be confident of emerging from a difficult period rather than entering into another.
Pedro Passos Coelho was at Lisbon’s Catholic University to open a project support facility designed to handle processes within the “Creating Health” research and innovation programme, with his 20-minute speech closing on the day’s theme.
After referencing progress in the field, the prime minister concluded that Portugal had won back the trust of investors due to “serving as one of the examples helping to see off the European recession” and in conjunction with Ireland “having successfully closed their assistance programmes and done their fair share of the work and taking on the responsibilities due to them.”