Nuno Veiga / LUSA
Paulo Portas at the PSD Summer University
It is a value very close to the minimum wage. Former minister hopes that Portugal will preserve its stability.
O average net monthly salary of employees, in Portugal, was 1.282 euros last year. Data shows an increase of R$97 compared to 2024.
To Paulo Portas, this is a very low number – especially because the minimum wage is 920 euros. There is a 362 euros difference between the two numbers.
“What impresses me about Portuguese society – with significant improvements in the last three years – is not so much that the minimum wage is low, because it has progressed and progresses every year: it is that the average net salary is too close to the minimum wage“, analyzed Paulo Portas, remembering that the average net salary pays taxes and the minimum does not.
The former minister was the guest speaker at the PSD parliamentary conference dinner, in Caminha.
At a time when the government’s labor package is on the political agenda, the former CDS-PP leader argued that “the only way to improve the average net income of the Portuguese is to increase productivity”.
“It is an offer by workers and companies to improve productivity, because it is the only way for us to improve our net average salarywhere I would focus attention that you could have”, he advised.
About productivity, warned that Europe is already less productive than the United States and Portugal and Spain even less than the European Union average.
Stability, danger
The former deputy prime minister argued that “the best thing Portugal can do is preserve its stability” in a “volatile and dangerous” world and warned that the only way to improve average wages is to increase productivity.
The former leader of the CDS-PP asked: “Faced with a world like this, what should a Portuguese person think? world is very volatile, often dangeroussometimes irrational and is a cause for great concern.”
And he left some advice: “The best thing that Portugal can do in the name of its interests and that of the Portuguese is preserve its stabilitywhen there is so much instability around us”, he said.
Earlier, regarding the world situation, Portas had already left another appeal for stability, saying that none of the main current problems are solved with “tweets or posts” on social media: “They imply commitment between political forces and constancy of governments”, he insisted.
Regarding the position of the Europa in relation to the rest of the world, he argued that this continent should focus “on what depends only on itself”, pointing out demography, productivity and innovation as the biggest challenges.
The former government number two admitted that if Europe does nothing to overcome its challenges, starting with demographics, it could join a geopolitical decline also a geoeconomic.
“We are the oldest continent in the world, we are 44.3 years old and we Portuguese are 47.1 years old. We are not the worst, but we should be careful”, he warned.
Portas stressed that “it takes a long time to reverse a demographic decline” and that this will only be possible with a combination of policies and continued over time.
“It is necessary that family policies, fiscal policies, housing policies, labor market policies and regulated immigration policies are constantly aligned in the stars. It is not a matter of some coming and taking this away, those coming and taking that other away, because otherwise we will not be able to overcome this decline”, he said.
In his speech, Portas reviewed the main geopolitical challenges and made a point of saying that is neither “an anthropological pessimist nor an irritating optimist”leaving a word of hope about a quick end to the conflict in Iran.
“I think we can say that the geoeconomic impact was so great in the first few days that this is a great incentive for it not to last too long, particularly on the part of democracies that have to face electoral challenges in 2026”, he said, referring specifically to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who has mid-term elections in November.
