After Ireland, Portugal left the financial assistance programme, without any parachutes – that is, without additional loans piling on the €78bn already obtained by international creditors.
Portugal, as well as Greece and Ireland, was forced to exit the international credit market and obtained a loan by the EU and the IMF, in exchange for a programme of reforms and austerity. Now that programme has been accomplished, and from May 17 the country will abandon its state of “special monitoring”, even though the Eurogroup Ministers will go on monitoring the country during its post-programme period.
The pressure has been softened then, and Portugal decided to exit its macroeconomic adjustment programme without requesting a follow-up. “May 17 will remain in our history as the day of all Portuguese, because we could have come so farther without their support,” commented the Portuguese PM, Pedro Passos Coelho. “It will not be the day of the government not the day of the political party: it will be the day of Portuguese people. That’s why I want to applaud them.” Passos Coelho has also underlined that the decision of ending the programme without any further precautionary measure was “the right choice at the right time” given that the European economy as a whole is getting back to growth.
The other seventeen members of the common currency area have all complimented “the success of Portuguese authorities in implementing the programme” of reforms and macroeconomic imbalances corrections, as well as “the efforts the Portuguese people made in such difficult circumstances.” The end of the programme in Portugal “unequivocally shows our determination in working together for assuring cohesion and stability of the euroarea,” commented Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the President of the Eurogroup. Portugal is the second country to ending the programme after Ireland, which ended it on December 15, 2013, after three years of monitoring and a €10bn loan.
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