António Costa welcomes Chancellor Angela Merkel to Lisbon, Portugal, on May 31, 2018. Zhang Liyun/Press Association. All rights reserved.
In the last two years or so the Portuguese prime minister and socialist leader António Costa has become one of the darlings of the European left. Since 2016, social-democratic party leaders from all corners of Europe have flocked to Lisbon to understand how Costa’s minority government (which relies on the key support of the radical left parties Left Bloc and the Communist Party-Greens) was able to reverse the European Union’s (EU) imposed austerity policies whilst meeting Eurozone deficit targets.
But perhaps more important than learning lessons on how to (modestly) reverse austerity, European centre-left leaders should listen to the Portuguese Prime Minister’s proposals for Eurozone reform. They have the merit of offering some much needed succour to struggling social democratic parties.
