The adjustment programme has widely been regarded as a success. In my view, this success was due to three factors: 1. First, programme ownership. Portugal was committed to the implementation of the programme, which was accepted by the population. A constructive dialogue with social partners was possible and this was key to ensuring the success of the quarterly reviews. 2.
Secondly, the speed and intensity of the response from the tradable sector, in particular exports, was key to the rapid rebalancing of external accounts and mitigation of the impact of lower domestic demand on the non-tradable sector. 3. Third, the maintenance of confidence in the banking sector, as evidenced by the behaviour of deposits.