Fernando Medina, Finance Minister, said this Monday afternoon that the European Commission’s macroeconomic forecasts are “good news” for Portugal. However, when asked about the possibility of taking additional support measures to “improve the living conditions of the Portuguese”, the minister warns of the need to act “cautiously”.
“If today’s forecasts for the Portuguese economy materialize, we can face the whole financial year 2024 and beyond in a more solid way,” the minister said, leaving a warning: “We should have always kept in mind that we have to take steps that are always compatible with leg size.”
“We cannot take measures of a structural nature in the country, such as measures of a fiscal nature, measures from an expenditure point of view, so we cannot be sure that we will not be able to comply with them under any circumstances,” said Fernando Medina, relatively cautious “in an adverse scenario, of greater difficulty”.
“I know that we are sometimes criticized for this prudence, but I believe that prudence in the conduct of politics and economics is a great asset that we must have”he said, after commenting with satisfaction on the European Commission’s macroeconomic forecasts.
“This is good news for our country, as it indicates that in 2023 Portugal will experience very significant growth, more than double what is estimated for the growth of the eurozone economies, lower inflation than predicted, very much in line with the government’s forecasts. Employment is increasing and a capacity that means this important economic growth, which the country will have this year, a capacity to continue to support and improve the living conditions of the Portuguese,” the minister stressed.
In the document, Brussels expects energy bill support measures “to be completely phased out by 2024”, noting that “the net budgetary cost of energy support measures” is estimated to be 0.8% of GDP in 2023 “, highlighting that as “the significant drop” compared to the 2.0% of 2022.
When asked if the government intends to lift the measure, Fernando Medina admits that it is “no longer justified today”, as it was last year.
“We will follow the general approach established for the different countries, which corresponds to the fact that in the energy markets, in what we know and the projections are for the year 2023, there are already in some areas where prices are even already lower than the prices we had before the conflict,” he said.
“We’re seeing it in a number of areas in energy and so these are areas where there’s no justification for subsidizing the scale that was there today because prices are basically at a level that’s already lower than before. before the conflict, that motivated the existence of public support,” he said.
Source: DN
