The new Foreign Affairs Minister, Augusto Santos Silva, said today that the Banif situation showed "how illusory were the supposed truths underlying the right-wing propaganda" and said the time for election fantasy is over.
"It is not true, nor was it ever true, that the financial system, in particular the banking system, had been corrected by the intervention of the Troika.
“Although the second objective of the adjustment programme was to consolidate the Portuguese banking system, what happened was the deterioration of several Portuguese banks."
The minister was speaking at an otherwise cheerful Christmas dinner the District Federation of the Oporto Socialist Party, in Matosinhos.
Silva said that in relation to Banif, that "today the country is faced with a crisis, which it is addressing, but which itself demonstrates how illusory, how fantastical, how manipulative were the alleged truths of the right-wing propaganda."
"The time for fantasy, illusion, demagogues and manipulation is over. We know well the serious problems facing the country, we know the problems that have been swept under the carpet purely for electoral reasons," said Augusto Santos Silva referring of course to the previous government's skillful use of the media to put across a rosy image of the economy on which it pinned its election hopes.
But there is some Christmas hope in political terms, according to Silva, as now in office is "a Socialist Party government with a Socialist Party programme that benefits from having majority parliamentary support and which is attuned to the moderate center-left that characterises the Socialist Party."
Banif, to which the good minister referred, was bailed out in 2012 to the tune of €1.1 billion of taxpayers’ money. Its share price has collapsed, the shares currently are suspended and its directors are reviewing six purchase offers receive last Friday.
The cost to the public purse will be significant but on the bright side, the Governor of the Bank of Portugal, Carlos Costa, may be fired as his banking regulatory role seems a little too much for him to cope with.
