Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

(Cem anos de crédito externo da República) Portugal's Foreign Credit Since the 1920s

2019; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.3458458

1556-5068

Jorge Braga de Macedo,

Political and Social Issues

Portuguese Abstract: Ao longo de 100 anos, o recurso da República a mercados financeiros externos, maisou menos articulado com a Organização Económica e Financeira ou o Fundo MonetárioInternacional, permite retirar lições que continuam relevantes. Tendo-me sido facultadoselementos relativos ao empréstimo da Sociedade das Nações, no sentido de prefaciar umapublicação intitulada Salazar e o saneamento financeiro, pareceu natural repristinar trabalhosdesde os anos 1960, em anexos que foram sendo inseridos no texto. Estando o livro à venda,acrescentei subsecções às secções que as não tinham, de maneira a realçar a relevância daslições dos anos 1920, 1960 e 1990. Qual posfácio, a última subsecção, interroga-se sobre aconstituição financeira vigente. Como ressalta da correspondência entre Fonsecas, Santos & Vianna e o que é hoje Citibank, estava no âmago do famoso saneamento financeiro “umempréstimo que não foi”. Adicionalmente, a interacção entre autor, filho e prefaciadorpermitiu descobrir “um artigo que não foi”. Embora esta descoberta seja mais sensacional,sem a articulação do Ministro das Finanças com os bancos estrangeiros, através de FSV, oproblema constitucional de emitir aquele empréstimo teria beliscado o crédito do soberano. Asubsecção 2.1. mostra assim como o regresso ao crédito externo em condições de mercadocom Dillon, Read e Baring Brother (secundários na negociação anterior), tornaram a Repúblicapioneira improvável das euro-emissões. Mais, ressalta da secção 3 que a mudança de regimecambial consagrada no Tratado da União Europeia presumia mudanças na constituiçãofinanceira e orçamental. Porém, foram ignoradas até à crise do euro e continuam adiadas.Assim, sem prejuízo das comparações conjunturais, o farol da história consegue realçar acomplementaridade entre organizações e mercados financeiros internacionais.English Abstract: Since its last credit event in 1890, Portugal improved on the vicious cycle between public and external deficits observed during the constitutional democracy. While there were successful revolutions in 1910, 1918, 1926 and 1974, external financial reputation had been a policy concern issue in the 1920s and 1960s, after joining EFTA. The fourth revolution led to two IMF stabilization programs but European integration brought back market access. In the 1990s, the escudo joined the European Monetary System and became part of the euro. Lessons from the Portuguese currency experience during the 20th century became relevant again in the early 2010s, when a program of economic and financial assistance agreed with IMF, European Commission and ECB prevented another sovereign debt crisis. This paper discusses newly available evidence on alternatives to a League of Nations EFO loan, which somehow proceeded until just before the great crash. The correspondence between the foreign and domestic banks, often reflecting interactions with the Minister of Finance, was described and interpreted in a manuscript written in the early 1980s by João de Sousa da Câmara, while he was working on the history of Banco Fonsecas & Burnay. As the author numbered less than half of the 140 documents kept in the Archives of predecessor Fonsecas, Santos & Vianna, I list them in three tables by order of appearance in the book, whose title could be translated as Salazar and financial cleanse (though the cleansing refers to public, rather than personal, finance). When Camara was at last willing and able to publish his report, I wrote a draft preface which led him to discover in the National Archives two draft versions of the manuscript Salazar submitted to Foreign Affairs Magazine, which he annexed to the book, confirming that it was never published. He found a new document, dated 3 February 1930, thanking the editor, which replaces the letter 29 November 1929 from FSV to what became Citibank. As it turns out, now defunct Dillon, Read and Baring Brothers also underwrote Republic of Portugal issues in the 1960s and I described the process in a 1970 publication, excerpts of which are reproduced in section 2. In section 3, I update previous work on the change in currency regime called for in the Maastricht Treaty - which I signed as Minister of Finance. The fiscal and financial constitutions were such that successive governments, especially after 2007, ignored the excessive deficit procedure, though it was in effect almost every year between 2001 and 2015. The neglect was such that a program of economic and financial assistance was required in 2011. The lessons drawn in section 4.3 echo historical precedents rather than the contemporaneous programs in Greece and Ireland.