Augusto Santos Silva was speaking at the end of a plenary meeting of the permanent Commission for social stability, headed by prime minister António Costa and focused exclusively on the European Council’s Brexit debate held Wednesday.

“We are working in Brussels and in London to reach an agreement, but we are ready for all scenarios, including no deal,” he told journalists following a meeting with social partners.

“We have worked consistently with other member states so that an agreement will be possible and we think it is possible to reach a desirable agreement.”

He added that Portugal was particularly interested in the Brexit process because of the many Portuguese citizens residing in the United Kingdom and to “very close” economic ties between both countries.

However he pointed out that Britain’s prime minister Theresa May had promised that the rights of EU citizens would be respected even in a no deal scenario.

Santos Silva also said the Portuguese government was working to mitigate negative effects of Brexit and underlined the importance of working together with companies and trade unions to figure out what the main difficulties were and which sectors and regions would require the most support.

Negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union hit an impasse last weekend over the Northern Ireland border.

The United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on 29 March 2019, almost three years after the referendum vote that saw around 52% of British citizens vote in favour of splitting from the Europen bloc.