“Portugal does not intend to renegotiate its debt,” says Augusto Santos Silva – the guardian

After, during the debate of the State Budget in general, to the left, the BE, the PCP and PEV have appealed to the Executive to proceed with a process of renegotiation of the debt, Augusto Santos Silva rejected today during the hearing in the framework of the proposed State Budget for 2017, which the Government is available to a restructuring or renegotiation of the debt.

“Portugal does not intend to renegotiate its debt, in the sense of asking his creditors to a logical any – directly or indirectly associable to a ‘haircut’ – a cut from the ‘stock’ of debt due. Portugal does not intend to raise by itself any process of restructuring systemic debt,” said Augusto Santos Silva, in parliament, in response to Pedro Mota Soares, the deputy of the CDS-PP.

In response, the minister of Foreign Affairs stressed, however, that Portugal intends to continue to take advantage of all the degrees of freedom that enable you now to extend maturities now swap debt markets for debt interest low, now put debt short-term interest rates near zero”.

in This sense, Augusto Santos Silva stressed that these are “elements of conventional debt management”, adds the minister, “the former Government already used and the current also”, but clarified: “Portugal will not be on the sidelines of a discussion about what the debt represents for many countries”.

“it Would be a huge mistake to Portugal isolate themselves as a country with problems with their debt. But we, in Europe, we have a problem of debt,” added the minister of Foreign Affairs.

last Friday, in the debate of the State Budget in general, Mário Centeno, minister of Finance, had signed: “it Is necessary that Portugal has a reduction in the rate of interest that is paid for by your debt.”

MOTHER does not speak about France, but criticizes the “inequality of treatment”.

Asked about the alleged “secret agreement” between the European Commission and France, which have allowed the Paris does not meet the limits imposed by the european rules, Augusto Santos Silva does not comments to be the specific case, but stresses that there should be equality in the treatment of the member states of the European Union.

“Portugal has no problem with the intelligent application of the rules, including the rules of the Treaty Budget, we have problems regarding the inequality of treatment between member states, between regions or people,” he said.