Former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho spoke out this Thursday “very satisfied” with what he considered to be the “very good result” of the PSD in the local elections, after giving a speech in which he left warnings regarding the Government’s economic policy.
“I was very happy with the result of the local elections, especially because my party, the PSD, had a very good result. And therefore I am satisfied”said Pedro Passos Coelho in statements to journalists after speaking at the presentation of the book “Introduction to Liberalism”by Miguel Morgado, in Lisbon.
Regarding the fact that Suzana Garcia, whose candidacy Passos Coelho supported, was unable to be elected president of the Chamber of Amadora, the former prime minister said that “it was for a black nail”.
“I hope that the candidate doesn’t give up because, really, she is a force of nature, she is a person who, I won’t say alone, but, ultimately, with very limited support, achieved a great result and that should make us think about who has the responsibilities to think about this”he considered.
Faced with the insistence of journalists to talk about other topics, Passos Coelho said that, regarding politics, he had already said everything he had to say in the speech he gave at the presentation of Miguel Morgado’s book, before leaving a guarantee.
“You won’t hear me talk about anything anytime soon”, assured, after having made five public interventions since September 25th.
Eight years of PS were “covert austerity” e “small talk”
In the speech he gave at the presentation session of Miguel Morgado’s book, Pedro Passos Coelho accused the PS governments led by António Costa of not having done “a worthy renovation”.
They were “eight years of idle talk telling people that they were going to have a lot of what they didn’t have after all. Of course, with the PCP and BE supporting this. It’s delicious. But with a hidden austerity. So lying to people”he accused
The former prime minister stated that, in these years of PS governance, the “truth was not being told” and considered that this is now happening when observing the “dramatic insufficiency of public investment” or the situation in the National Health Service (SNS).
Then, accusing the PS of having had a “disqualified public policy” and although he said he did not intend to talk about the last years of government, Passos Coelho left a warning in terms of economic matters.
Dark cloud hanging over the economy?
“The Minister of Finance is a very competent man and, therefore, I believe that he has his accounts very well done and guarantees that we will not return to public deficits and public debt and all that. But my life experience also shows that there is a lot that does not depend on the Minister of Finance”he said.
And as far as it does not depend on the Minister of Finance, continued Passos Coelho, “things are not heading towards the result” desired.
“We should be preparing ourselves to ease the economy’s rate of deleveraging because what is happening in France [onde o Governo aceitou suspender o aumento da idade da reforma] It won’t end well. Magical thinking is something that has a limited duration”he warned.
Passos Coelho acknowledged that it can be argued that Portugal is better because it has “a little less than 90% of the debt ratio”.
“Yes, but Put an economic crisis on top of it, what will the debt ratio go to? From the outset, the denominator shrinks, expenditure increases, where does the debt ratio go? It is very quick to return to a higher ratio”he warned.
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