The Government does not rule out the possibility of raising taxes, to offset the lead of the Constitutional Court to cuts in Civil Service salaries and pensions. Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said yesterday in Albufeira that "the Government cannot exclude any measure", so as not to miss the goals assumed to contain the deficit.
“The country cannot fail with the goals it has set out to achieve. The day we miss our commitments, we start to have higher interest rates and financing difficulties», he warned.
What concrete measures will be applied and, if there is an increase in rates, which will rise, this year and in 2015, will still be something to be announced. What is certain is that the Government wants the President of the Republic to request the preventive inspection of the State Budget for 2015, a measure that it considers "in everyone's interest".
«I think it would be unbearable for the Portuguese and very costly for the economic recovery if there was too high uncertainty about the measures that can or not be applied and what people can count on for their lives», considered Passos Coelho, on the sidelines of the meeting of the European People's Party, which has been taking place since Monday, in Albufeira.
This vision has already been transmitted by the Prime Minister to Cavaco Silva, but the Government leaves an eventual decision to "in due time".
Despite claiming that he is not "at war with the Constitutional Court" and that the Government's position has been one of "huge restraint", Pedro Passos Coelho took the opportunity to leave another message for that body. “There is no economic recovery that resists this type of approach”, he considered.
“The country cannot fail with the goals it has set out to achieve. The day we miss our commitments, we start to have higher interest rates and financing difficulties», he warned.
The prime minister also stated that the decision not to receive the last tranche of financing from the Troika “was not taken by the Government”. «Since there was a change in the conditions agreed with the Troika, after the last assessment, we were not able to activate the last tranche. Only by reopening the assistance program would we be able to access this amount”, he revealed.
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