The proposal, to which Lusa had access on Friday ahead of its presentation, is “merely an example of the type of restructuring that would be possible,” and is based on instruments, "that have previously been developed and used by Government institutions in the Euro Zone, particularly in the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Stability Mechanism to Member States.

In the proposal the working group asks for the PSPP to be transformed into a "permanent programme" through which the Bank of Portugal (BdP), "would commit to keeping a balance, for the purposes of conducting monetary policy, the around €28 billion in public debt (Treasury Bonds) that it plans to take on until December 2017 as part of the PSPP."

To do this, the central bank, “would have to buy back Treasury Bonds of an equal value, after the maturity of the Treasury Bonds acquired as part of the PSPP programme."

Portugal’s public debt in February rose to €243.490 billion, an additional €643 million compared to January and €11.956 billion more against the same month of 2016, the Bank of Portugal said.