Centeno, who is finance minister of Portugal as well as presiding over the grouping of euro-zone finance ministers, was speaking in Lisbon, in conversation with pupils at a middle school that he was visiting as part of events to mark Europe Day.

The issue of ‘Brexit’ was raised several times by pupils, who asked Centeno why the UK had opted to leave the EU.

“Sometimes, politicians can have bad ideas, but all of us, collectively, have to ... try to find solutions," he said. "For that reason, the discussion about Brexit is so important, on the one hand to show the determination in he contruction of the future [of the EU] and form the point of view of the United Kingdom of the definition of what is the relationship that the country wants to have with this notion of Europe.

“Dealing with bad ideas sometimes is not so pleasant as with good ones, but we have to show that we can manage to be friends like before and build something that is possible to build so that the future may not be very damaged by this decision," Centeno told the children, who listened to him intently.

What it is to be European, why the Portuguese should be proud to be European, what Portugal can gain from having its finance minister as president of the Eurogroup, why countries might want to leave the EU and others not yet want to join it were among the questions put to Centeno by the pupils of two Lisbon schools.

Centeno talked of the importance of celebrating Europe, promoting diversity, integration, cooperation and peace, as part of iniatiatives to mark Europe Day.