António Costa was speaking in São Bento, at a press conference, after being confronted with the fact that the Government communicated to the president of the PSD, Rui Rio, that the financing needs of the Portuguese State are around 13 billion Euros by the end of the year.

Not mentioning values, the Prime Minister guaranteed that the financing needs of the Portuguese State "are happily assured".

"At this moment, all the financing conditions of the Portuguese economy are assured, which has resulted in a very positive evolution in the interest rate [at 10 years] of the Republic. After an initial moment of this crisis [of covid-19] having registered an upward trajectory, it was then duly controlled by the intervention of the European Central Bank, stabilizing this pressure", observed the leader of the executive.

According to the Prime Minister, in recent weeks, the evolution of the Portuguese interest rate "has continued to be very positive".

"Today, we have an interest rate below that of Spain again, which has not happened since the beginning of the crisis. This means that the markets are calm and confident about the Republic's financing capacity," he added.

At the press conference, António Costa considered that the "IRS refund has been proceeding normally, and will continue to do so".

At this point, the executive's leader referred journalists to a statement issued on 27 May by the Ministry of Finance on this subject, "giving note of how much has been returned so far".

"There is no problem, there is the normal return of the IRS. As we know, the months of March and April were particularly disturbing in our lives and this was also reflected in the pace of treatment and processing of returns," he claimed.