Prime Minister expects ECB to cut interest rates in June

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro expressed this Friday the expectation that the European Central Bank (ECB) will be able to cut interest rates as early as June, while maintaining the independence of this regulator.

During the preparatory debates for the European Council on 17 and 18 April in the Assembly of the Republic, Luís Montenegro was called on by PCP parliamentary leader Paula Santos to “not be complacent about this situation”, saying that Portugal is one of the countries most affected by monetary -credit policy of the ECB.

“We expect that in the coming months, perhaps as early as June, interest rates could fall again. For Portuguese families, for the financing of Portuguese companies, it is important that we have a financing structure that is tolerable in order to guarantee us a better quality of life and greater competitiveness,” responded Luis Montenegro.

Despite this, the Prime Minister spoke of the need to respect not only the independence of the ECB, but also the purpose behind its decisions, which is to curb any moves to raise interest rates.

“I am not saying that there are no conditions for lowering interest rates, I believe that there are, but we are all interested in containing any movement associated with a re-inflation. Such an increase would be an even greater punishment for the lives of people and companies than this more defensive ECB policy,” he said.

“I repeat: even so, we expect that this decline could occur as early as June next year,” he said.

On Thursday, the ECB left interest rates unchanged for the fifth time in a row, but began setting the stage for a possible cut in June if inflation continues to fall.

During the debate, Luis Montenegro was also confronted in the dock in Livre with news published by Expresso, according to which the Portuguese businessman Pedro Vargas David, who owns the newspapers “Sol” and “i”m, received $45 million from the Hungarian state to buy Euronews.

Rui Tavares wanted to know whether the Prime Minister had made any inquiries to Mario David, the businessman’s father, former SDP MEP and political adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, as well as the current Secretary of State for Administration. Christina Vaz Tome, Euronews consultant.

In response, Montenegro said that “all totalitarian projects, left and right, are enemies of the European Union,” but refused to take on any investigative role in the case.

“I have not done any due diligence and will not do so (…) I believe that a small approach to a member of the government who is an asset to the government and his professional career has nothing to do with the issue that he raised, unfortunately.” , – he said.