The Prime Minister stated, in his Christmas message, that he leaves a better country after eight years of leadership by socialist governments, considering that Portugal is prepared to face the challenges with a more qualified population and with less debt.
António Costa defended this position in his ninth and final Christmas message as Prime Minister, around a month and a half after resigning as head of the Government due to a judicial investigation and when early legislative elections are scheduled for March 10 .
«In these eight years in which I had the opportunity to get to know the Portuguese and Portugal even better, I only strengthened my confidence in our homeland. It is with this reinforced confidence in each one of you, in our collective capacity, in Portugal, that I say goodbye wishing you a merry Christmas, an excellent year 2024 and the certainty that the Portuguese will continue to make each new year an even better year. », declared the executive leader at the end of his message.
In his message, António Costa said he concluded that the last eight years proved that he had “good reasons” to trust the country.
«Together we overcome the anguish of the pandemic; together we have ensured that the tragedy of the 2017 fires will not be repeated; together we have achieved more and better jobs; we reduce poverty and reduce inequalities; we have regained peace of mind in families’ daily lives; together we have attracted more investment from companies and won more exports; we restored rights and balanced public accounts; together we overcame difficulties and together we built a better country», he advocated.
From his perspective, there are reasons to be confident that Portugal “is prepared to overcome the great challenges” it faces.
«Our level of qualifications is close to the best European standards. We recovered a deficit that was centuries old. And this recovery is due to the extraordinary efforts of families, young people and, persistently, public policies in the last two decades », he highlighted.
On the environmental front, «the biggest challenge», António Costa pointed out that «Portugal is the European Union country in the best conditions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045».
«Until October, 63% of the electricity we consumed came from renewable sources. This value will be 80% by 2026. For Portugal, investment in the energy transition, in addition to the duty to contribute to saving humanity, is also an extraordinary economic opportunity to create jobs, value natural resources and replace imports with exports », he justified.
On the financial front, the prime minister highlighted that Portugal “managed to free itself from decades of chronic budget deficits”.
«But we did it based on economic growth, on the appreciation of the income of those who work and those who live off their pensions. Having less debt means greater external credibility, but it means, above all, greater freedom for the Portuguese”, he considered.
For these reasons, according to António Costa, the Portuguese can “continue to have confidence in the future”.
«The confidence that we will continue to converge with the most developed countries in the European Union, as has happened again in the last few», he said.
In his message, the Prime Minister also assumed that “there are problems” that Portugal must overcome and warned that “there must always be strength and determination to face them”.
«But we have a lot of work going on that we cannot stop. In the face of adversity, we have a duty to be persistent and never give up. And that is why the message I want to leave you today is, once again, a message of trust. Trust us Portuguese; of trust in Portugal, our country", he added.
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