This position was taken by António Costa in an interview with Radio Observador, which lasted about an hour and was led by journalists Miguel Pinheiro, Pedro Benavides and Rita Tavares.

Asked about the possibility that Mário Centeno could be the general director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), succeeding Christine Lagarde, Costa replied that this was not a fixed objective.

The objectives we have in this framework are within the European Union, he said.

The hypothesis that is on the table regarding the IMF is obviously something we cannot fail to consider, he added.

The prime minister then refused to make "probability judgments" about the possibility of Centeno succeeding Lagarde at the helm of the IMF and said this issue was unlike the candidatures of António Guterres to the post of secretary-general of the United Nations and Centeno himself to the post of president of the Eurogroup - these, were, he said, "country objectives" at diplomatic level.

Regarding the possibility of Mário Centeno occupying a portfolio in the future team of the European Commission in the area of euro management, António Costa said that he had already had a conversation with the new president, the German Ursula Von der Leyen, and then it was agreed that "each country would always present two names, one of each type.