“This is certainly going to be the year that records the biggest economic growth since the beginning of the century”, while that quote was laced with politicial rhetoric, it was also true, and Prime Minister, António Costa, and his Socialist Party were riding a crest of a wave.
The Prime Minister explained that “all Portuguese are today paying less tax” and added that contrary to what government critics had been predicting, “the disposable income of Portuguese families has improved by ten percent.”
António Costa also reminded supporters that Portuguese have seen health costs shrink, with their expenditure down by “62 million euros over the past two years” while adding that the national health system has been reinforced with six thousand workers.
The Prime Minister’s comments followed news that the unemployment rate had dropped to under 9 percent for the first time since 2009, and that job creation had climbed to a 19-year high.
The Portuguese finance minister meanwhile said that the ever-improving economic situation in Portugal was due to three factors: Cleaning up the financial system, the stabilisation of the banks and the political change”.
The latter was a reference to the programme of the minority Socialist government, which has restored spending power, above all for public sector workers, since it took office in late 2015.
Centeno also recalled that the EU was filled with scepticism when the current government decided to loosen the austerity belt in order to increase spending and economic growth, a sentiment which has since been “proven wrong”.
He did however caution against excessive optimism and said much work still needed to be done in terms of dealing with the side effects of the economic crisis.