• Costa Lima, the executive president for the Agência Portuguesa para o Investimento (API), the Portuguese Agency for Investment, said last week that the State didn’t believe in the citizen and that this principle was “contaminating the private sector”. At the same time, he described Portugal as the “champion of prior authorisation”, meaning that no one could get anything done easily on his/her own initiative, without getting caught up in mounds of red tape and legal-administrative obstacles.
• The Finance Minister, Teixeira dos Santos, said last week that Portugal could not let up its guard over the budget deficit. “We have to continue to control our strict policies to get the budget deficit down,” he warned.
