The scenario of economic recovery described by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho in his Christmas message has been ridiculed by all three opposition parties.
The PS, PCP and the Left Bloc reacted to some of Pedro Passos Coelho’s statements, classifying them as lacking factual veracity.
"You lie," said the leader of the PS, Antonio Galamba, "youth unemployment is not diminishing, it is increasing. The data that came out on Friday indicated that there was an increase of 2.2% in youth unemployment and the unemployed under 25 year olds at present represent 13% of the unemployed in Portugal," said an incredulous Galamba.
The PCP described the Christmas message as "hypocritical" and "cynical."
"This is a prime minister and a government that intends to continue to lie and deceive the Portuguese people, suggesting better times to come, but actually adapting measures that increasingly worsen the lives of workers, young people, pensioners - in fact all of those in the vast majority that are suffering. Meantime in the background he is ensuring the fabulous profits of banks, speculators and major domestic and foreign economic groups," said communist party spokesman Pedro Guerreiro.
Marisa Matias from the Left Bloc disputed the figures presented by Passos Coelho, in particular those that dealt with the creation of employment, "what Passos Coelho and the government are doing are reducing, not increasing the nimber of jobs in Portugal, contrary to what he is stating."
To speak of "a decrease in unemployment," Passos Coelho was avoiding taking in to account the saddening exodus of "thousands of Portuguese who had to leave the country," added Matias, referring to the estimated 120,000 people who have emigrated in the past 12 months.
Marisa Matias said this was proof that the prime minister "does not speak for the country we know," but rather to "markets."
Galamba went on to accuse Passos Coelho of being out of step with reality, "this kind of Christmas story, unrelated to the reality of day-to-day Portuguese and without any positive result for their lives, these crocodile tears from the Prime Minister do not solve anything."
In his Christmas message to the country, Pedro Passos Coelho defined his main challenge for 2014, to exit the country‘s assistance programme "smoothly," promising the use of "all instruments" to achieve this.
When taking stock of 2013, the Prime Minister stressed that the economy had "begun to come back," anticipating with a truism that "the best years are yet to come."
The PM said that it has been a very demanding and difficult year and warned that "positive signs are still not enough to be able to say that the country has got over the crisis, because there are some uncertainties and obstacles that still remain."
