Portugal ever-smiley Prime Minister, António Costa, said today that 2017 may be viewed with "enhanced confidence."
The PM says that the country "is nearing the end of a fiscal year of excellence, where it was possible to fulfill the commitments made with the Portuguese to return families' incomes and create conditions for investment."
After the final approval of the 2017 State Budget in Parliament, the prime minister said that all the political conditions have been met to face next year "with enhanced confidence"
António Costa was speaking to journalists after the Socialist Party, the Left Block, The Communist Party, The Greens and PAN (People Animal Nature) approved the government's budget proposal.
The parties involved in the previous coalition government voted against the budget proposal. So enfeebled is the former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, that his PSD party may soon kick him out as its leader, making way for new blood in the form of a former mayor of Oporto, the pugnacious Rui Rio.
The PM noted the "calm manner in which this debate has been concluded, which will allow us to face 2017 with enhanced confidence for all families and businesses.”
"We are going to have the lowest deficit of our entire democratic period and we have now approved a budget that will lead us to the middle of the legislature. It is a budget that will continue what is essential: turning back the page of austerity and maintaining all the conditions of active participation within the framework of the euro zone," the PM said.
António Costa’s alternative way of running the economy, by “strengthening household income, increasing public investment and creating better conditions for private investment, furthering the development of the social state, particularly in poverty reduction policies, and investing in science, education and culture," remains incomprehensible to right-of-centre parties but Costa has enough support from his left wing alliance to get the budget through.
Costa promises "strict management, that will allow next year to continue along a path of deficit and debt reduction, and the consolidation of Portugal's participation in the euro zone framework."
