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Mário Centeno has defended the Free Zone of Madeira (ZFM) and the government of António Costa to clarify the position taken by the executive in Brussels and defend his protection for the future. In an interview with the newspaper Público, published in the edition of today, he explained that Portugal, declaring that the main objective of the ZFM was not the creation of jobs, had perhaps adopted a "misunderstood" position. According to the Minister of Finance and President of the Eurogroup, it was to integrate job creation with the broader aim of promoting economic, social and territorial cohesion in this outermost region. This was not read that way.
As we read in the newspaper, Portugal would not have been able to convince the European Union of the importance of the ZFM. "By reacting for the first time to the preliminary findings of the European Commission (EC) investigation, Mario Centeno acknowledges that the information transmitted by Portugal over three years" was not enough to convince [Bruxelas] something other than the fact that state aid has been abused. "
The creation of jobs and the location of these by companies benefiting from a special tax regime are at the center of the controversy. The number of jobs created and maintained in Madeira was a prerequisite for the European Commission to approve the tax regime in 2007 and 2013. However, in the assessment carried out, the EC executive considers that Portugal "applied the IRC reduction to entities approved in the center of enterprise without checking the necessary conditions, without distinguishing the jobs created in Madeira or outside." She further concludes that the jobs created were "" no objective of real economic development for the Madeira region "and that companies that do not operate in the archipelago" can not be considered as the legitimate beneficiaries of the regime ".
Mário Centeno recognizes that economic and social development is a job creation, but that "the goal – and this is the answer given by the government, and perhaps misunderstood, is economic and social development and creation instrumental variable used to define profit, "he told Público, explaining that it was not a question of reducing the role of employment, but that the ZFM's objective" is not limited to this alone. dimension ".
Centeno argues that the use of these tax revenues in social programs contributes to economic and social development. "We can not be Manichean in the way we treat these problems, on one side or the other," he said, stressing that "it was necessary to" protect the regime for the future, "writes the newspaper.
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