“We have cash available - what the finance minister a while ago called a financial cushion - we have our coffers duly equipped to cope with any circumstance of market volatility, market disturbance that might happen,” he told journalists after a campaign stop at an industrial park in Barreiro, south of Lisbon.
He noted that given that the sale of Novo Banco, the successor institution to collapsed bank Banco Espírito Santo, will now not take place before the election, the state debt management institute “will now have to adapt its treasury management that that circumstance.”
No decision has been taken, he said, regarding what kind of early payment of loans the state might undertake between now and the end of the year. The possibility of further loans from the International Monetary Fund being paid off early will depend on an assessment of market conditions, he explained.
On who would be finance minister if the governing coalition is returned to power, Passos Coelho said the matter was very clear in his own head, but declined to name names.