Costa Silva was speakingat the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon, during the public consultation session on the “Strategic Vision for the 2020/2030 Recovery Plan,” a document created at the government’s request, with the priorities for pulling out of the crisis.

“All our problems and constraints have come to the forefront in this crisis: decapitalised companies, very high public debt which in itself inhibits growth, the limitations of our productive structure, the decline in investment and low productivity. Therefore it is very important to face up to the crisis from all these perspectives and to bear in mind that the recovery will be slow”, the university professor said.

“We are going to go into further decline before there is growth, we are going to get worse before we start improving,” Costa Silva stressed, arguing that the country needs to use “all its assets” to preserve its productive capacity.

“We are under no illusion, we will have companies that will not stand up to this pandemic,” he said, adding that the pandemic crisis “is the tip of the iceberg,” but down below is the “very serious” environmental and climate crisis.

The initial document, called the “Strategic Vision for the 2020/2030 Recovery Plan,” was presented on 21 July and was in public consultation in August, receiving 1,153 proposals for contributions, considered to be “an extraordinary contribution.”

According to the socialist executive, with the conclusion of the “Strategic Vision”, the Government already approved on 10 September, in Council of Ministers, the first version of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, an instrument of the Government that will already be translated into the proposed State Budget for 2021, which will be delivered on 12 October in Parliament.

The Recovery and Resilience Programme will then be publicly presented on 14 October, the day before the document is handed over to the European Commission.