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Speaking to parliament before the symbolic vote, Pedro Passos Coelho also said the economy was giving signs of nearing a turnaround after a long, deep recession, showing the country was taking the right path out of its debt crisis. All members of parliament from the two parties of the centre-right ruling coalition, who have a solid majority in the house, voted in support of the motion of confidence. The opposition Socialists and two other left-wing parties voted against, their leaders dismissing the premier's optimism about the economy and saying austerity only leads to disaster.
The Premier said: "There are 10 months left of the assistance programme, full of challenges and tough choices. But it certainly isn't now that we will falter. We will manage to make structural spending cuts under the terms already announced."
Portugal has promised to cut spending by €4.7 billion by the end of 2014, the year in which Lisbon hopes to return to normal market financing. Many investors believe it will still need some form of further support, not least due to its steep recession. But Passos Coelho said: "There are growing positive signals in the economy that we may be very close to the turnaround that all the Portuguese want".
While the government has also promised to boost growth by cutting corporate taxes, the premier said any fiscal reform must be gradual. "We don't have budgetary margin to accommodate a corporate tax reform in just one year", he said.