A “lone archer” in the Government. This is how El País Español describes, in the introduction to an interview with António Costa Silva published this Monday, the profile of the Portuguese minister. Asked about the clashes that he has already had within the Executive -publicly defending proposals with which the Government did not agree or wanted to discuss in private-, the official assures that “there is no disagreement with Fernando Medina”, but leaves a message: ” My concern is the economy.”
The question was specifically about the controversy surrounding the IRC’s transversal reduction proposal, which Costa Silva defends but Medina and António Costa do not, as they insisted on making clear in public. This time, the minister refuses to comment further on the matter, but she defends the need to “combine an economic policy that is effective with a balanced fiscal policy.”
As for the first controversy in which he was involved – when he defended a tax on exaggerated corporate profits in times of inflation, a proposal meanwhile adopted by Brussels – he is cautious and says that we have to “wait for the studies”. that are being produced about the effects of the proposal, even recalling that in Portugal “energy companies already pay an extraordinary contribution” (the same argument that António Costa used, at the time, to show his reservations).
Alarmed by the cacophony of Costa Silva, PS does not skimp on the hard core. “The government is not healthy”
The Minister of Economy also denies that it is convenient to “relax” with respect to the policy of “certain accounts” that the Government has been maintaining. This is the one that has borne good fruit, says the minister, defending Portuguese growth and rejecting for now the risk of recession, although she acknowledges that “there may be an economic slowdown.”
The minister still leaves warnings for the (near) future: since it is not possible to “underestimate the dimension of human stupidity”, he criticizes, referring to the war, it is possible that Vladimir Putin “completely cancel gas exports to the United States Joined”. Europe” in the middle of winter and, in that case, the energy markets will suffer. “We must have a response, which also involves the Iberian Peninsula. In these decades we have not been able to build a single European market”, he laments.
Source: Observadora
