Fernando Medina, who is being heard today in the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Committee about reducing public debt in 2023, was responding to questions about news that has been released about the payment of dividends from three public companies (Águas de Portugal, Casa da Moeda and NAV) to reduce the debt in 2023.

"The decision not to approve any capital increase is the correct decision," said Fernando Medina, emphasising that it would be "absurd" for AdP to reduce capital in December to increase it in January, having expressed total agreement with the current Finance Minister, Miranda Sarmento, for having decided to refuse the capital increase.

At issue, for these three companies together, is 130 million euros (100 million from AdP, 20 million from NAV and 10 million from Casa da Moeda), with the current PS deputy and former Finance Minister noting that with this value, the public debt was 99.1% of GDP at the end of 2023 and that without these 130 million euros it would have been "99.1%" of GDP.

"We did not promise any capital increase to Águas de Portugal, because Águas de Portugal did not need a capital increase," said the former minister, emphasising that the company's management also did not present any investment plan until 2031.

During the hearing, the minister also said that the State injected capital into public companies of almost three billion euros in 2023, having requested the payment of 13 million euros in dividends.

Medina also stated that the payment of these dividends was made taking into account the fulfilment of criteria that were scrupulously observed, namely, that the debt ratio was not higher than four times; that the general liquidity ratio was not lower than 0.9% and that the equity was not less than half of the share capital.

This hearing in the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Committee was requested by the CDS-PP and had the votes in favour of all the parliamentary groups present, including the PS.

In a report on market conditions, public debt and external debt until March, released on 10 April, UTAO considers that the substantial increase in the consolidation factors of public debt in 2023 results from budget surpluses and the "deliberate search for applications in bonds", indicating that this increase in applications from organic units in debt instruments will result in some cases "from mere management options", there also being cases in which "the financial management options were conditioned by government guidelines".

The document from the body led by Rui Baleiras classifies the reduction in public debt as "artificial".

The public debt ratio was set at 99.1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023 and in nominal terms it decreased by 9.3 billion euros compared to the previous year, to 263.1 billion euros.

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