By CHRIS GRAEME chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
Ten former finance ministers from both the PSD and PS parties remained tight-lipped on Monday following a two-hour meeting with President Cavaco Silva over the perilous state of Portugal’s finances and the economy.
The ex-ministers, who arrived at the Palácio de Belém in the morning, made a short declaration to the press via a spokesman, Manuel Jacinto Nunes, a former Bank of Portugal governor and finance minister, in which he simply stated that the meeting aimed to discuss “the country’s economic situation” and express their “concerns, shared by all Portuguese, about the situation” and the need to “temporarily shelve” big ticket public investment projects.
The economists and financial experts included former PSD finance ministers Bagão Felix and Manuela Ferreira Leite and ex-finance minister Eduardo Catroga, who limited himself to stating that the aim of the meeting was to “call the country’s attention and the attention of public opinion and politicians for the need to change the situation”.
The meeting followed Prime Minister José Sócrates’ return from a visit to Brussels where he announced the postponement of some big public investment projects, including the future Lisbon International Airport and the third bridge over the River Tejo as measures to help shore up public finances.
President Cavaco Silva said that the government’s decision to rethink all large public works projects, whose contracts had not yet been definitively awarded, “would go some way towards meeting the opinions of what many economists and politicians had been saying all along.”
The various political parties are, however, still divided between those supporting the government’s decision and criticising it for not going far enough by postponing the TGV high-speed rail link as well.
The Minister for Public Works, who took part on Saturday in the contract signing ceremony for the TGV branch line between Poceiro-Caia, admitted that the government was “rethinking the third Tejo bridge and the new airport”.
Former Finance Minister Bagão Félix, who on Monday joined such names as João Salgueiro, Medina Carreira, Pina Moura and Eduardo Catroga, said: “We cannot plea poor on the one hand and make out we’re rich on the other, and falsely so, at a time when outside financial agencies have us under the spotlight”.
In a statement to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, he added: “How will our fight against the country’s deficit be interpreted abroad if we’re shelling out funds for public investment projects we shouldn’t even be doing?”
However, the opinion of these 10 former finance ministers contrasts strongly with the Portuguese Foreign Commerce and Investment Agency AICEP, which believes that the new airport and high speed rail link are essential in order to modernise the country.
On Friday, the new PSD leader Pedro Passos Coelho applauded the decision to postpone the public works projects, while President Cavaco Silva has said various times that the projects represent 10 per cent of Portugal’s GDP and has added that it “makes sense to rethink public and private investments and instead concentrate on investing in transactional goods (exports) and reducing imports.”
