“The country’s image has been reinforced in this crisis in different dimensions”, due to “political unity and institutional [achieved] consultation and maintaining all the constituent elements of democracy”, stated Augusto Santos Silva.
He added: “The resilience of the SNS [National Health Service] is one of the most prominent elements in the circles that count in Europe: political, economic, business, union circles and, of course, also public opinion”, said Santos Silva.
Questioned by the deputies, the minister admitted that the export sector will be one of the most penalised with the current crisis, but considered that the recovery to the level of 2019 should happen in “two to three years”.
“According to the European Union’s forecasts, it is possible that the drop in Portuguese exports will reach 14 percent, but this drop we all expect to be cyclical,” said Santos Silva, adding that “the same forecasts point to a recovery of Portuguese exports by 13 percent”.
Although he did not expect the level of the economy to be, in 2021, identical to that of last year, the minister said that the Government’s forecast, of recovery in two to three years, “is more than comfortable”, being “even prudent”.
The minister also considered that the response to the crisis should not be made through austerity, but “through investment by all” and “by betting on new opportunities”.
Although he admitted that the accumulation of debt by the State is a mistake, Santos Silva implied that going to the debt market is inevitable.
The State “has suffered the logical consequence of the slowdown in economic activity, which is the decrease in tax revenue and, at the same time, it has increased its expenditure very significantly, both with credit lines and with resources it makes available to families, people and companies ”, he recalled.
This implies, according to him, that the State has to finance itself “much more than what was foreseen in the State Budget for 2020”, being that “this need for State financing will grow in the coming months because in the recovery phase of economy, more funding will also be needed.
On the other hand, “one of the teachings of this crisis in Europe is the importance of not losing sight of the State’s social expenditure because it is the one that guarantees the capacity to respond in terms of health and social protection”, said Santos Silva.
To overcome the situation, achieving lower costs and longer payment terms, Augusto Santos Silva considered that the best solution is for the Member States of the European Union to request market financing together.
“If we go to the market together, we will all get a double benefit: more generous moratoriums, more manageable repayment terms and lower if not nonexistent interest rates”, he defended.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs added that the Government wants to transform the country into a “powerful‘ cluster ’of industrialised Europe”.
“The first axis [of the Portuguese strategy] is that Portugal wants to be at the forefront of Europe’s reindustrialization and wants to put its enormous industrial capacities at the service of Europe”, said Augusto Santos Silva.
According to Santos Silva, the economic crisis caused by the confinement and the closure of economic activities in the context of the new coronavirus pandemic has forced countries “to learn some lessons that could be an opportunity for Portugal and Europe”.
One of these lessons is that the European economy needs reindustrialisation, which, according to Augusto Santos Silva, could be an opportunity for Portugal.