The finance is widely seen as increasing the possibility that Portugal's minority Socialist government can secure the votes in favour of its budget bill of the three Social Democratic Party (PSD) deputies from Madeira in the national parliament.

"I want to say that I am very pleased with the fifty-percent co-financing for the construction and equipping of the new hospital, which is a fundamental infrastructure for the future of Madeirans and which we have fought for all these years," Miguel Albuquerque, the head of the Madeira regional government, said on the sidelines of an event on a rural development programme in the archipelago, under which 11 applications worth €1.9 million were approved.

Commenting on the 2020 budget bill with regard to Madeira, Albuquerque began by saying that what is known is "the financing of the new central hospital at fifty percent without charge in relation to existing buildings", which he said "meets the demands that the region has made in recent years."

He also noted that the interest rate on the €1.5 billion loan contracted from the Portuguese state in 2012 under the country’s euro-zone bailout had already been cut.

"There has already been a reduction and there is a propensity to continue to decline," he noted.

As for the subsidies for fares for air and sea travel between Madeira and mainland Portugal, another demand under consideration by the central government, he said that "nothing is settled yet".

On the issue of whether the three PSD Madeira deputies in the national parliament could help get the Socialist government’s budget through, Albuquerque replied: "The prospect is that the game is still open: only at the end of the game can we draw conclusions, there is still the first reading and then the discussion in the committee stage. Let's wait."