ECB president criticises Portugal’s economic policy

The President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde has criticised European governments like Portugal which have adopted across-the-board rather than targeted support measures to help Portuguese families.

The ECB president also warned that the economic situation in the Eurozone would get worse before it got better, and said that budgetary measures should focus on more vulnerable families.
“We should be seeing targeted, temporary and more tailored measures that are helpful to protect particularly the most vulnerable people who are really taking the brunt of the high prices”, she said.
She added that measures that were “widespread, sweeping and did not make a distinction between the beneficiaries who are in dire need of support, and those who are not, were “certainly not helping monetary policy” and “can cause an upward pressure on prices”.
A similar warning was made by the president of Euronext Lisboa, Isabel Ucha last week both on families and businesses, and reinforced by the Governor of the Bank of Portugal, Mário Centeno this week.
Mário Centeno revealed his concern that 2022 has been the “first year after many in which private consumer spending would grow more than investment”.
“In the 2022 statistics it will be the first year after many in which private consumption grew more than investment. This is of great concern for the future. Investment is what generates income for the future”, said Mário Centeno in his closing speech at the conference ‘The Impact of the New World Order in the European Economy’ organised by the online news source ECO.
The government announced last week that it would hand-out a cheque of €125 to all families whose income is under €2,700 per month.