António Costa was asked about the statements by PS president Carlos César, who called for the creation of a tax on the extraordinary profits of companies.

In response, the Prime Minister stressed that the Government does not disregard “the situation that there are companies whose activity has been abnormally benefiting from the fact that prices have increased”.

However, Costa said that “for some of them, it is necessary to take into account” that there are already “surcharges and more surcharges”.

“Therefore, our situation is not fully comparable with the existence [of the tax] in other countries. And this must be taken into account, because you already pay a surcharge and a surcharge on top of the surcharge, perhaps it is no longer reasonable to demand a third surcharge. And, therefore, this must be looked at carefully”, he stressed.

The prime minister stressed that the executive is “analysing the situation”, to see if this tax “is justified”, namely through a study to understand “what are the benefits that other countries that have already adopted, or have already announced adopting measures of this type of measure”.

“Because adopting a measure just to say that we adopted a surcharge to charge a surcharge, and then if that translates into little or nothing, (…) it makes no sense”, he stressed.