Paulo Portas replies: “Pasos Coelho considered the troika a virtuous good and me a necessary evil.”

Former CDS-PP leader Paulo Portas said this Sunday that Passos Coelho considers the troika a “virtuous good”, while he considers it a “necessary evil” and pointed to the resigned TSU as one of the difficult moments in the coalition .

“Sometimes Passos Coelho thought or implied that in his opinion the “troika” was a virtuous good, I thought that the “troika” was a necessary evil,” Paulo Portas said in his television commentary on TVI, responding to the statements of the then Prime Minister. minister and government coalition partner during the period when Portugal was under intervention by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Last week, in an interview with the “I was there” podcast on Observador radio, former PSD president told journalist Maria João Avilés that during his reign with the SDS-PP, the troika gave signals “from a certain point” that there was a problem of trust towards coalition partner, Minister of State and Foreign Affairs Paulo Portas, and “began to demand letters signed by him.”

“I don’t think he knows this: to prevent humiliation of the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, I made the Minister of Finance sign a letter to the institutions with me and him. All three of us signed. Troika demanded the letter only to him, because I didn’t trust him,” said Passos Coelho.

Stating that “whoever does not think so is not the son of good people”, Paulo Portas considered that the former prime minister’s comments were “neither appropriate nor fair” but refused to “use private conversations between political leaders” and enter ” in a personal controversy” with Passos Coelho.

“It’s 2024, a center-right government has just come in, I don’t see what’s the point of contributing to this debate,” he commented.

Paulo Portas recalled that he agreed with Passos Coelho in the need to solve the problem of Portugal’s insolvency, in implementing the troika memorandum, which they did not agree on, and in trying to find a clean exit for Portugal from the emergency program, but indicated the Conclusion of the reformed TSU as one of main differences and a “difficult moment” in the coalition.

“Passos Coelho often used the expression “to go beyond the three.” I’ve always been more skeptical about this idea. In my opinion, social cohesion was necessary to support this program that would resolve Portugal’s bankruptcy and allow us to restore our normalcy. in Portuguese society people felt that the sacrifices were fair, the restrictions were distributed and did not exceed a certain limit,” he said.

“TSU about pensions was one of the difficult moments. The measure arose as a structural measure and therefore has mandatory financing conditions. Following this tension, the measure became optional and was no longer a condition of funding. I thought this was a double penalty for pensioners that was over the line and would create the perception among seniors that they were being targeted in the program,” he said, adding that six months later the measure had proven unnecessary.

According to Paulo Portas, if this measure were not necessary, “it would probably be overdone”, and, according to a current commentator, with “a little more flexibility and a little less rigidity”, the program could be implemented “without undue imbalance socially.” unity of the country.”

“This was not necessary,” he concluded.