Costa responds with results in Finance to PSD criticism of Medina

The prime minister said today that the finance minister is 'obviously' able to stay in government, responding to PSD criticism with Fernando Medina's results, and assured that he was never afraid of go to elections.

During the debate on the motion of no confidence of the Liberal Initiative in government, the parliamentary leader of the PSD, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, accused the executive led by António Costa of being “collapsed and collapsing ".

“The Portuguese trusted themselves to govern alone and suffered impoverishment and instability. Instability because it gave the Christmas present that the Portuguese neither wanted nor deserved: a government crisis,” he charged.

Miranda Sarmento insisted on the PSD's criticisms of Finance Minister Fernando Medina, whom he accuses of having lost his political authority, after appointing Alexandra Reis to the post of Secretary of State for the Treasury (in the meantime dismissed of his duties), who months before had received half a million euros to leave TAP early.

“What political authority does your Minister of Finance have, how can you trust him to ensure the proper management and control of public funds? Having an incompetent, frivolous and irresponsible finance minister can happen, it's a bad choice, but keeping him in office has only one person in charge,” he said, referring to António Costa.

The leader of the PSD also left advice to the Prime Minister: “Either you change your life, or the Portuguese change their government”.

In response, Costa said that "30 years ago this year" he ran for office for the first time, which he later lost.

“Afterwards, I ran for elections several times, sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. Thanks for the advice, I've never been afraid to run for office, have you ever given it? “, he questioned.

On the question of whether he considers that Medina is able to remain in government, the Prime Minister was categorical: “Of course, yes, otherwise what were you doing here sitting on the bench of the government? ".

And he added that "a good reason" for the Portuguese to continue to trust the Minister of Finance is that he took office in the middle of 2022, in a scenario of war, inflationary crisis and unpredictability, and that it reached the end of the year with debt reduction and a lower deficit than expected.

“These are the results that this finance minister and this government achieved last year,” he defended himself.

SMA // JPS