The verdict of the European Commission on whether or not to apply sanctions on Spain and Portugal for missing their 2015 financial targets is due on July 5th with the Commission leaning towards punishing the two countries.
Portugal and Spain can expect fines of up to 0.2% of their respective GDPs, in addition to the suspension of access to essential structural funds.
In May this year, the European Commission skirted around the issue of sanctions and then delayed deciding. This political stand-off took into account Spain’s then imminent general election and Portugal’s fragile government which is seen to be trying hard, but not enough for hardliners within the European Commission.
Portugal’s Left Bloc leader, Catarina Martins, yesterday launched a blistering attack on the whole European management structure and suggested that should sanctions be applied, then Portugal holds a referendum to decide on European Union membership.
This attack drew a rapid response from Portugal’s president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who, at the end of a tour of new winery in Torres Vedras, said that it was up to him to decide whether there is to be a referendum or not, and his answer is a firm ‘no’.
The remaining political parties today supported the view of the president, with the Socialists, Communists, Social Democrats and the CDS-People’s Party all stating that they saw no reason to hold a referendum even if sanctions were applied.
The prime minister has yet to react to Catarina Martins’ proposal but in the turmoil currently infecting post-Brexit markets across Europe, this may not be the time to use threats that certainly would be viewed as 'empty' by the Commissioners.
"I do not think it is time to have referendums. It is time to defend a Europe capable of responding to the problems experienced by the peoples of Europe," said Pedro Nuno Santos, Socialist MP whose colleague Ana Catarina Mendes, the Assistant Secretary General of the Socialist Party added, that “it is time for a reinvention and re-foundation of the European project, but not a referendum.”
Former Prime Minister and current PSD leader Pedro Passos Coelho commented, "I think we should not dramatise the situation. The United Kingdom may have left the European Union, but it has not come out of Europe."
The former PM also took the opportunity to reaffirm that "as the Portuguese are strongly in Europe and the European project we should not use a referendum as a kind of political weapon in the discussion on sanctions."
