Brussels, 21/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - Portugal not being Greece, there is no plan for adjusting the Portuguese aid programme currently on the table, said Olli Rehn, Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, speaking after the Ecofin Council meeting on Tuesday 21 February.
The previous day, the Portuguese national bank had announced an increase in the Portuguese public debt to 107.2% of GDP at the end of 2011 compared to 93.4% one year earlier, in line with IMF forecasts. The public debt reached €183 billion at the end of 2011 compared to €161 billion one year before and the IMF expects the debt to reach 118% of GDP in 2013. Such estimates, coupled with bad growth prospects (3% recession in 2012) have over recent weeks raised questions about Lisbon's ability to remain within the lines of its €78 billion aid programme.
There is no need to raise such issues at present, the commissioner said seeking to be reassuring and pointing out that Europeans do not as yet intend to amend the Portuguese programme as defined in May 2011. He repeated that private sector involvement in debt restructuring was a case that was “specific and unique” to Greece and that “it would not be repeated in other eurozone countries”. Rehn pointed out that implementation of the austerity plan was in Portugal, as in Ireland, “well on track”. He simply said that he would reserve himself the right to evaluate the results reached by the “troika” (European Commission, IMF and ECB), which is currently in Lisbon and which is to give in its results next week. If adjustments are still possible for countries under assistance then, Rehn went on to say, they will be made within the framework of the “initial decisions” taken.
On Friday 17 February, Portugal's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho had once more indicated that his country would not request new emergency funding or an extension of the current bailout plan from its creditors and that it had undertaken to stick to the objective of reducing the public deficit to 4.5% of GDP this year compared to 5.9% in 2011.
The Socialist leader, Antonio Seguro, however, takes the view that Portugal will need “more time” to achieve the targets set by the troika, and that it would take one more year for the country to consolidate its public finances, the Reuters agency reports. Seguro was speaking at a meeting with the troika that has been making its third assessment of reforms requested since last Wednesday. (SP/transl.jl)