"Contrary to what the government has told us, we do not need to continue with austerity to keep us in the euro while it is also not true what the radical left has been saying that we need to break with the euro in order to abandon austerity” said Costa before affirming that ending austerity would actually better enable Portuguese participation in the euro.


The Socialist Party leader continued to say that governing was not about dreaming but about making dreams reality and that meant “understanding the conditions available for governing.”


Costa stated that he represented an alternative and that the current government had failed by recalling how according to the government’s 2011 forecasts, "Gross Domestic Product in 2015 should now be 7% higher than it is, with a debt level of 100% and not the current 130% and running a budget deficit of 0.5% rather than the 2.7% forecast."


The Socialist Party leader was speaking to some 700 supporters and said that while he had overseen the drafting of a feasible economic program to take into the election campaign, the government was still making unspecified cuts in reference to plans to lop another €600 million off the state pension bill.


Costa concluded that "this means that the government has not only not learned from its errors but also has nothing new to say and the only thing it knows how to present are cuts” before promising that his government would harm neither state nor household finances.