“After yesterday’s (Monday’s) European Commission (EC) announcement that Portugal would leave the Excessive Deficit Programme, we have asked our partners at the Ecofin meeting for a new waiver so we can make an early repayment of about €10 billion to the IMF” the finance secretary said at the end of the meeting of the Ecofim group.

Ricardo Mourinho Félix said paying the IMF back earlier than scheduled would help “manage the future payments better”, which would “facilitate the funding” and “the cost of funding would be incomparably lower”.