The president of the Eurogroup also took the opportunity to react to data released on Wednesday by the Statistics Portugal (INE), which indicate that the unemployment rate in the third quarter of the year fell to 6.1%, 0.2 percentage points less than in the previous quarter and 0.6 percentage points less than a year ago.

"This is good news for Portugal, for its labour market, and we project that it will continue in 2020, now also with the sponsorship of the European Commission," reacted Mario Centeno, alluding to the optimistic economic forecasts released today by Brussels.

According to INE, the unemployment rate recorded in the third quarter is the lowest since 2011.

Today, the European Commission has improved Portugal's economic growth forecast by three-tenths to 2% this year, a tenth higher than expected by the government, and has maintained the previous forecast of 1.7% in 2020.

In the autumn economic forecasts released today in Brussels, the EU executive estimates that Portugal's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow 2% this year, above the previous estimate of 1.7% released in July and a tenth above the government forecast.

Brussels anticipates that the unemployment rate will fall from 7% in 2018 to 6.3% this year and 5.9% in 2020, the same estimates that the government included in its draft budget presented in October.