Last week, during a visit to Croatia, de Sousa himself had said that it could not be ruled out that Portugal would have growth of around 3.2% and a public sector budget deficit equivalent to 1.4%.

On Thursday, in comments to journalists in Luxembourg, where he was concluding a state visit, the president argued that his forecasts of last week were perfectly logical because "when one quarter is at 2.8% [year-on-year growth in GDP] it can go further ... in the following quarter or by the end of the year, but there's such a change of pace that makes it possible to reach these values."

On Wednesday Portugal's finance minister, Mário Centeno, said he believed that GDP could in the second quarter be more than 3% larger than the same period a year earlier.

The president is to depart Luxembourg late on Thursday for Madrid, where together with the king and queen of Spain he is to inaugurate the city's book fair, where Portugal is this year's featured guest country.