Brussels, 24/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - Representatives of Portugal's international lenders, the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) will be back in Lisbon on 20 February for their eleventh quarterly monitoring mission to examine the Portuguese aid programme, announced the Portuguese government on Thursday.
This is the penultimate assessment before the country exits the aid programme in May. If the assessment is positive, Portugal will be given a new aid instalment of €2.6 billion of the €78 billion aid plan.
The government has not officially ruled out any scenarios for exiting the programme, such as use of preventative credit from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) or returning to the markets unaided in June 2014.
Addressing the European Parliament on Tuesday 21 January, Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn said it was too soon to say whether Portugal would need preventative credit. The European Commission, he said, would assess the situation, but a decision would not be taken until the spring. (SP/transl.fl)